Local Experiments See Cosmologically Varying Constants
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2011-07-19 v2 Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We describe a rigorous construction, using matched asymptotic expansions, which establishes under very general conditions that local terrestrial and solar-system experiments will measure the effects of varying `constants' of Nature occurring on cosmological scales to computable precision. In particular, `constants' driven by scalar fields will still be found to evolve in time when observed within virialised structures like clusters, galaxies, and planetary systems. This provides a justification for combining cosmological and terrestrial constraints on the possible time variation of many assumed `constants' of Nature, including the fine structure constant and Newton's gravitation constant.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0512117,
title = {Local Experiments See Cosmologically Varying Constants},
author = {Douglas J. Shaw and John D. Barrow},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0512117},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
6 pages