Varying-Alpha and K-Essence
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2015-01-20 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We introduce a model which allows the fine structure constant (alpha) to vary throughout space and time due to a coupling to a scalar field with a non-canonical kinetic structure. This provided a new extension of the Bekenstein-Sandvik-Barrow-Magueijo model of alpha variations. The background cosmology is studied in detail using dynamical systems techniques for a scalar field of ghost condensate type. We show generically that if the kinetic terms are chosen to allow an accelerated late-time attractor for the expansion scale factor then alpha will not asymptote to a constant at late times.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1408.2788,
title = {Varying-Alpha and K-Essence},
author = {Alexander A. H. Graham},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.2788},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
14 pages, 3 figures. v2: typos corrected, references added and some additional comments. Matches published version