Related papers: The Fine Structure Constant and the CMB Damping Sc…
We use the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy data from Planck to constrain the spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure constant \alpha. Through Thompson scattering of CMB photons, spatial anisotropies of \alpha lead to…
The fine-structure constant, $\alpha$, controls the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. There are extensions of the standard model in which $\alpha$ is dynamical on cosmological length and time-scales. The physics of the cosmic…
We demonstrate that recent measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarization anisotropy made by the ACBAR, QUAD and BICEP experiments substantially improve the cosmological constraints on possible variations of the…
We study constraints on time variation of the fine structure constant alpha from cosmic microwave background (CMB) taking into account simultaneous change in alpha and the electron mass m_e which might be implied in unification theories. We…
We study dependence of the CMB temperature anisotropy spectrum on the value of the fine structure constant $\alpha$ and the equation of state of the dark energy component of the total density of the universe. We find that bounds imposed on…
We study the effects on cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies of spatial fluctuations of the fine-structure parameter between causally disconnected regions of the Universe at the time of recombination.…
Any time variation in the fine-structure constant alters the ionization history of the universe and therefore changes the pattern of cosmic microwave background fluctuations. We calculate the changes in the spectrum of these fluctuations as…
We extend our recent work on the effects of a time-varying fine-structure constant $\alpha$ in the cosmic microwave background, by providing a thorough analysis of the degeneracies between $\alpha$ and the other cosmological parameters, and…
We forecast the ability of future CMB and galaxy lensing surveys to constrain variations of the fine structure constant. We found that lensing data, as those expected from satellite experiments as Euclid could improve the constraint from…
The formation of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) provides a very powerful probe of the early universe at the epoch of recombination. Specifically, it is possible to constrain the variation of fundamental physical constants…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies is a good probe to look into the primordial density fluctuations at large scales in the universe. Here we re-examine the angular power spectrum of…
We investigate constraints on the time variation of the fine structure constant between the recombination epoch and the present epoch, \Delta\alpha/\alpha \equiv (\alpha_{rec} - \alpha_{now})/\alpha_{now}, from cosmic microwave background…
Fundamental physical constants need not be constant, neither spatially nor temporally. -- This seeming simple statement has profound implications for a wide range of physical processes and interactions, and can be probed through a number of…
The power spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) depends on most of the key cosmological parameters. Accurate future measurements of this power spectrum might therefore allow us to determine h, Omega, Omega_b,…
We present a summary of recent constraints on the value of the fine-structure constant at the epoch of decoupling from the recent observations made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite. Within the set of models…
We use the three-scale framework of Hu et al. to show how the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy spectrum depends on the fundamental constants. As expected, the spectrum depends only on \emph{dimensionless} combinations of the…
The possible variation of the fine structure constant may be due to the non-minimal coupling of the electromagnetic field to a light scalar field which can be the candidate of dark energy. Its dynamical nature renders the fine structure…
Recent measurements of a peak in the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background appear to suggest that geometry of the universe is close to being flat. But if other accepted indicators of cosmological parameters are also…
We present updated constraints on the variation of the fine structure constant, $\alpha_{\rm EM}$, and effective electron rest mass, $m_{\rm e}$, during the cosmological recombination era. These two fundamental constants directly affect the…
The COBE detection of microwave anisotropies provides the best way of fixing the amplitude of cosmological fluctuations on the largest scales. We discuss the impact of this new, precise normalization and give fitting formulae for the…