Gauge propagator and physical consistency of the CPT-even part of the Standard Model Extension

Abstract

In this work, we explicitly evaluate the gauge propagator of the Maxwell theory supplemented by the CPT-even term of the SME. First, we specialize our evaluation for the parity-odd sector of the tensor $W_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma}$,\ using a parametrization that retains only the three nonbirefringent coefficients. From the poles of the propagator, it is shown that physical modes of this electrodynamics are stable, non-causal and unitary. In the sequel, we carry out the parity-even gauge propagator using a parametrization that allows to work with only the isotropic nonbirefringent element. In this case, we show that the physical modes of the parity-even sector of the tensor $W$ are causal, stable and unitary for a limited range of the isotropic coefficient.