Abstract
Highly precise measurements on the light from distant quasars can served as a powerful tool to test the possible spatial and temporal variations of the fine-structure constant α = e 2 /c during the evolution of the Universe. Here we set a limit on the possible cosmological space-time variations of α by comparing transitions in the absorption lines of the SiIV doublet observed in the early Universe with those mesured in the laboratory. The weighted mean value of the α-variation derived from our analysis over the redshift range 2.0 ≤ cps≤ 3.7 is Δα/α (-0.53 ± 0.72) ×10-5. This result improves the constraint on Δα/α by a factor of ~ seven compared to the published results in the literature.
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