Early-universe constraints on a time-varying fine structure constant
Astrophysics
2008-11-26 v4 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
Higher-dimensional theories have the remarkable feature of predicting a time (and hence redshift) dependence of the `fundamental' four dimensional constants on cosmological timescales. In this paper we update the bounds on a possible variation of the fine structure constant alpha at the time of BBN (z =10^10) and CMB (z=10^3). Using the recently-released high-resolution CMB anisotropy data and the latest estimates of primordial abundances of 4He and D, we do not find evidence for a varying alpha at more than one-sigma level at either epoch.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0102144,
title = {Early-universe constraints on a time-varying fine structure constant},
author = {P. P. Avelino and S. Esposito and G. Mangano and C. J. A. P. Martins and A. Melchiorri and G. Miele and O. Pisanti and G. Rocha and P. T. P. Viana},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0102144},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
5 pages, 1 figure, minor misprints corrected, references added. The analysis has been updated using new BOOMERanG and DASI data on CMB anisotropy