Avoiding bias in measurements of fundamental constants from high resolution quasar spectra
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
2022-03-15 v4 Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
Recent advances in spectroscopic instrumentation and calibration methods dramatically improve the quality of quasar spectra. Supercomputer calculations show that, at high spectral resolution, procedures used in some previous analyses of spacetime variations of fundamental constants are likely to generate spurious measurements, biased systematically towards a null result. Developments in analysis methods are also summarised and a prescription given for the analysis of new and forthcoming data.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2201.11499,
title = {Avoiding bias in measurements of fundamental constants from high resolution quasar spectra},
author = {John K. Webb and Chung-Chi Lee and Dinko Milaković},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.11499},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
17 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in "The Universe". Contribution for the AlteCosmoFun'21 conference volume, 6-10 September 2022, Szczecin, Poland