Indications of a spatial variation of the fine structure constant

Details Indications of a spatial variation of the fine structure constant Indications of a spatial variation of the fine structure constant

2010-08-23

arxiv.org/abs/1008.3907v2

Phys. Rev. Lett., 107, 191101, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

5 pages, 5 figures, published on 31st October 2011 in Physical Review Letters

Scientific paper

We previously reported Keck telescope observations suggesting a smaller value of the fine structure constant, alpha, at high redshift. New Very Large Telescope (VLT) data, probing a different direction in the universe, shows an inverse evolution; alpha increases at high redshift. Although the pattern could be due to as yet undetected systematic effects, with the systematics as presently understood the combined dataset fits a spatial dipole, significant at the 4.2-sigma level, in the direction right ascension 17.5 +/- 0.9 hours, declination -58 +/- 9 degrees. The independent VLT and Keck samples give consistent dipole directions and amplitudes, as do high and low redshift samples. A search for systematics, using observations duplicated at both telescopes, reveals none so far which emulate this result.

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