On the IR/UV mixing and experimental limits on the parameters of canonical noncommutative spacetimes

Abstract

We investigate some issues that are relevant for the derivation of experimental limits on the parameters of canonical noncommutative spacetimes. By analyzing a simple Wess-Zumino-type model in canonical noncommutative spacetime with soft supersymmetry breaking we explore the implications of ultraviolet supersymmetry on low-energy phenomenology. The fact that new physics in the ultraviolet can modify low-energy predictions affects significantly the derivation of limits on the noncommutativity parameters based on low-energy data. These are, in an appropriate sense here discussed, ``conditional limits''. We also find that some standard techniques for an effective low-energy description of theories with non-locality at short distance scales are only applicable in a regime where theories in canonical noncommutative spacetime lack any predictivity, because of the strong sensitivity to unknown UV physics. It appears useful to combine high-energy data, from astrophysics, with the more readily available low-energy data.