Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant

Details Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant

2000-12-29

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0012539v3

Phys.Rev.Lett.87:091301,2001

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

5 pages, 1 figure. Published in Phys. Rev. Lett. Small changes to discussion, added an acknowledgement and a reference

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.091301

We describe the results of a search for time variability of the fine structure constant, alpha, using absorption systems in the spectra of distant quasars. Three large optical datasets and two 21cm/mm absorption systems provide four independent samples, spanning 23% to 87% of the age of the universe. Each sample yields a smaller alpha in the past and the optical sample shows a 4-sigma deviation: da/a = -0.72 +/- 0.18 x 10^{-5} over the redshift range 0.5 < z < 3.5. We find no systematic effects which can explain our results. The only potentially significant systematic effects push da/a towards positive values, i.e. our results would become more significant were we to correct for them.

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