Related papers: Current and future constraints on Bekenstein-type …
We present new constraints on the evolution of dark energy from an analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background, supernova and X-ray galaxy cluster data. Our analysis employs a minimum of priors and exploits the complementary nature of these…
This work explores the dynamical stability of cosmological models where dark matter and dark energy can non-minimally couple to spacetime (scalar) curvature. Two different scenarios are presented here. In the initial case, only dark matter…
The laws of physics have a set of fundamental constants, and it is generally admitted that only dimensionless combinations of constants have physical significance. These combinations include the electromagnetic and gravitational fine…
We study the evolution of the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$, induced by non-linear density perturbations in the context of the simplest class of quintessence models with a non-minimal coupling to the electromagnetic field, in which the…
Cosmological data have provided new constraints on the number of neutrino species and the neutrino mass. However these constraints depend on assumptions related to the underlying cosmology. Since a correlation is expected between the number…
We show that observational limits on the possible time variation of constants of Nature are significantly affected by allowing for both space and time variation. Bekenstein's generalisation of Maxwell's equations to allow for cosmological…
The nuclear symmetry energy plays important role on the structure of finite nuclei as well as on the bulk properties of neutron stars. However, its values at high densities are completely uncertain and the corresponding experimental data…
The light neutrino masses are at present most stringently constraint via cosmological probes. In particular the Planck collaboration reports $ \sum m_\nu \leq 0.12\,\mathrm{eV}$ at $95\%$ CL within the standard cosmological model. This is…
I briefly present some current theoretical motivations for time or space variations of the fundamental constants of nature and review current key observational results. I focus on the fine-structure constant, and particularly on…
Development of fundamental physics relies on the constancy of various fundamental quantities such as the fine structure constant. Detecting or constraining the possible time variations of these fundamental physical quantities is an…
We consider the influence of variation in the fine structure constant alpha on a promising experiment proposed by DeMille et al. to search for variation in the electron-to-proton mass ratio mu using diatomic molecules [DeMille et al., Phys.…
Recent measurements of type Ia supernovae as well as other concordant observations suggest that the expansion of our universe is accelerating. A dark energy component has usually been invoked as the most feasible mechanism for the…
We investigate a link between the running of the fine structure constant $\alpha$ and a time evolving scalar dark energy field. Employing a versatile parameterization for the equation of state, we exhaustively cover the space of dark energy…
We examine the constraints from the recent HEIDELBERG-MOSCOW double beta decay experiment. It leads us to the almost degenerate or inverse hierarchy neutrino mass scenario. In this scenario, we obtain possible upper bounds for the Majorana…
We introduce and define the phenomenological parameter $\kappa$, defined by $\Delta a/g = \kappa \, \Delta(q/m)$, to quantify potential linear coupling between electric charge and gravitational acceleration. A synthesis of existing…
Measurements which probe the energy dependence of $\alpha_s$, the coupling strength of the strong interaction, are reviewed. Jet counting in $e^+ e^-$ annihilation, combining results obtained in the centre of mass energy range from 22 to…
We derive predictions for Yukawa coupling ratios within GUTs generated from operators with mass dimension four and five. These relations are a characteristic property of unified flavour models and can reduce the large number of free…
Inspired by recent claims for a varying fine structure constant, alpha, we investigate the effect of ``promoting coupling constants to variables'' upon various parameters of the standard model. We first consider a toy model: Proca's theory…
The consistency relations in large scale structure relate the lower-order correlation functions with their higher-order counterparts. They are direct outcome of the underlying symmetries of a dynamical system and can be tested using data…
A formalism is presented that allows cosmological experiments to be tested for consistency, and allows a simple frequentist interpretation of the resulting significance levels. As an example of an application, this formalism is used to…