Related papers: Changing alpha With Time: Implications For Fifth-F…
The two most popular candidates for dark energy, i.e. a cosmological constant and quintessence, are very difficult to distinguish observationally, mostly because the quintessence field does not have sizable fluctuations. We study a scalar…
We investigate the dependence of the nucleon-nucleon force in the deuteron system on the values of coupling strengths at high energy, which will in general depend on the geometry of extra dimensions. The stability of deuterium at all times…
We investigate the triple-alpha process and the Oklo phenomenon to obtain constraints on possible cosmological time variations of fundamental constants. Specifically we study cosmological temporal constraints for the fine structure constant…
The spectrograph ESPRESSO recently obtained a limit on the variation of the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$, through measurements along the line of sight of a bright quasar with a precision of $1.36$ ppm at $1\sigma$ level. This imposes…
We make use of Dirac LNH and results for a time varying fine structure constant in order to derive possible laws of variation for speed of light, the number of nucleons in the Universe, energy density and gravitational constant. By…
We review astrophysical, cosmological and terrestrial evidence for and against the constancy of fundamental parameters of particle physics, and discuss theoretical issues of unification and scalar-mediated forces, finding that the current…
A canonic scalar field minimally coupled to a disformal metric generated by the field itself is considered. Causality and stability conditions are derived for such a field. Cosmological effects are studied and it is shown that the disformal…
We initiate the exploration of the cosmology of dark fifth forces: new forces acting solely on Dark Matter. We focus on long range interactions which lead to an effective violation of the Equivalence Principle on cosmological scales today.…
The observed constraints on the variability of the proton to electron mass ratio $\mu$ and the fine structure constant $\alpha$ are used to establish constraints on the variability of the Quantum Chromodynamic Scale and a combination of the…
We consider an application of precision frequency measurements to searches for possible time variations of the fundamental physical constants. Current laboratory constraints on variations of the fine structure constant alpha and other…
We consider various possible consequences of time-varying dark energy due to a quintessence scalar field whose energy density is partially converted to particles as the field evolves down its potential. This particle production acts as a…
Recent observations suggest that a large fraction of the energy density of the universe has negative pressure. One explanation is vacuum energy density; another is quintessence in the form of a scalar field slowly evolving down a potential.…
Quintessence -- the energy density of a slowly evolving scalar field -- may constitute a dynamical form of the homogeneous dark energy in the universe. We review the basic idea in the light of the cosmological constant problem. Cosmological…
The mass of a scalar field mediating a fifth force is tightly constrained by experiments. We show, however, that adding a quartic self-interaction for such a scalar makes most tests much less constraining: the non-linear equation of motion…
Clocks based on nuclear isomer transitions promise exceptional stability and precision. The low transition energy of the thorium-229 isomer makes it an ideal candidate, as it has been excited by a vacuum-ultraviolet laser and is highly…
We show how the scalar field, a candidate of quintessence, in a proposed model of the scalar-tensor theories of gravity provides a way to understand a small but nonzero cosmological constant as indicated by recent observations. A particular…
Modifications of general relativity often involve coupling additional scalar fields to the Ricci scalar, leading to scalar-tensor theories of Brans-Dicke type. If the additional scalar fields are light, they can give rise to long-range…
We investigate the cosmological consequences of a simple theory in which the electric charge $e$ is allowed to vary. The theory is locally gauge and Lorentz invariant, and satisfies general covariance. We find that in this theory the fine…
Consequences of a new force mediated by a light scalar particle for neutrino oscillation experiments are considered. Such a force could give rise to neutrino masses and mixings whose matter dependence is much more significant than the MSW…
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…