Planck-Scale Dual-Curvature Lensing and Spacetime Noncommutativity

Abstract

It was recently realized that Planck-scale momentum-space curvature, which is expected in some approaches to the quantum-gravity problem, can produce dual-curvature lensing, a feature which mainly affects the direction of observation of particles emitted by very distant sources. Several gray areas remain in our understanding of dual-curvature lensing, including the possibility that it might be just a coordinate artifact and the possibility that it might be in some sense a by-product of the better studied dual-curvature redshift. We stress that data reported by the IceCube neutrino telescope should motivate a more vigorous effort of investigation of dual-curvature lensing, and we observe that studies of the recently proposed “ρ-Minkowski noncommutative spacetime” could be valuable from this perspective. Through a dedicated ρ-Minkowski analysis, we show that dual-curvature lensing is not merely a coordinate artifact and that it can be present even in theories without dual-curvature redshift.