Revisiting VLT/UVES constraints on a varying fine-structure constant
Abstract
Current analyses of VLT/UVES quasar spectra disagree with the Keck/HIRES evidence for a varying fine-structure constant, alpha. To investigate this we introduce a simple method for calculating the minimum possible uncertainty on Delta(alpha)/alpha for a given quasar absorber. For many absorbers in Chand et al. (2004) and for the single-absorber constraint of Levshakov et al. (2006) the quoted uncertainties are smaller than the minimum allowed by the UVES data. Failure of this basic consistency test prevents reliable comparison of the UVES and HIRES results.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0611080,
title = {Revisiting VLT/UVES constraints on a varying fine-structure constant},
author = {M. T. Murphy and J. K. Webb and V. V. Flambaum},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0611080},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures (3 EPS files). Invited contribution to the proceedings of "Precision Spectroscopy in Astrophysics", Aveiro, Portugal, Sep. 2006, eds Pasquini et al., ESO Astrophysics Symposia. v2: Corrected small typos and a reference. v3: Corrected another small typo