Related papers: The Meaning Of The Fine Structure Constant
Stability and characterisitic geometrical and kinematical sizes of galaxies are strictly related to a minimal characteristic action whose value is of order $h$, the Planck constant. We infer that quantum mechanics, in some sense, determines…
After a short history of the $\Lambda$-term it is explained why the (effective) cosmological constant is expected to obtain contributions from short-distance physics, corresponding to an energy at least as large as the Fermi scale. The…
Following our recent work on the cosmological constant problem, in this letter we make a specific proposal regarding the fine structure (i.e., the spectrum) of dark energy. The proposal is motivated by a deep analogy between the blackbody…
Recently some hidden inconsistencies in high energy physics and cosmology have been articulated by several scholars. If we follow the usual description we get an unacceptably high cosmological constant as was noticed by Weinberg and others…
A mechanism to control the cosmological constant through a scalar field non-minimally coupled to gravity is proposed. By utilizing non-minimal phantom or quintessence, the cosmological constant, which may be large originally, can be…
The fine structure constant $\alpha $ includes the speed of light as given by $\alpha =\frac{e^{2}}{4\pi \epsilon_{0}c\hbar}$. It is shown here that, following a $TH\epsilon \mu $ formalism, interpreting the permittivity $\epsilon_{0}$ and…
The fine structure constant $\alpha$ and the ratio $h/m_{\mathrm{u}}$ between the Planck constant and the unified atomic mass are keystone constants for the determination of other fundamental physical constants, especially the ones involved…
This is an essay sketching the line of thinking which has led the present author to propose the constituent or atomic model of gravitation more than a decade ago. It turns out that viewing the problem of gravitation as a quantum many body…
The observational evidence for the existence of a non-zero cosmological constant is getting stronger. It is therefore timely to address the question of its eventual effect on the dynamics of galaxies, clusters and larger structures in the…
Quantum gravity places entirely new challenges on the formulation of a consistent theory as well as on an extraction of potentially observable effects. Quantum corrections due to the gravitational field are commonly expected to be tiny…
Cosmography is a model-independent phenomenological approach to observational cosmology, relying on Taylor series expansions of physical quantities as a function of the cosmological redshift or other analogous variables. A recent work…
The problem of understanding fundamental physical constants was discussed in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology. Here, I show that a new insight comes from condensed matter physics and liquid physics in particular: fundamental…
We analyse the constraints obtained from new atomic clock data on the possible time variation of the fine structure `constant' and the electron-proton mass ratio and show how they are strengthened when the seasonal variation of Sun's…
Higher-dimensional theories imply that some constants, such as the gravitational constant and the strength of the gauge-couplings, are not fundamental constants. Instead they are related to the sizes of the extra--dimensional space, which…
The self-gravitating systems are formed by particles interacting through gravity. They describe structure formation in the universe. As a consequence of the long range interaction of gravity, they are inhomogeneous even at thermal…
We derive formulae for the time variation of the gravitational ``constant'' and of the fine structure ``constant'' in various models with extra dimensions and analyze their consistency with the observational data.
The scale of quantum mechanical effects in matter is set by Planck's constant, $\hbar$. This represents the quantisation scale for material objects. In this article, we present a simple argument why the quantisation scale for space, and…
Unification of the gauge couplings would imply that time variations of the fine structure constant are accompanied by calculable and very significant time variations in the QCD scale parameter $\Lambda_{QCD}$. Since $\Lambda_{QCD}$ is the…
Starting from the coupling of a relativistic quantum particle to the curved Schwarzschild space-time, we show that the Dirac--Schwarzschild problem has bound states and calculate their energies including relativistic corrections.…
We search for transient variations of the fine structure constant using data from a European network of fiber-linked optical atomic clocks. By searching for coherent variations in the recorded clock frequency comparisons across the network,…