Observational Constraints Imposed by Brans-Dicke Cosmologies

Abstract

Flat-space Brans-Dicke (BD) cosmologies previously found are analyzed in more detail. It is shown that the observed values of the matter density, the Hubble age, the ages of objects in the universe, the deceleration parameter, and the bound on the (unobserved) fractional time variation of the gravitational constant are too inaccurate to distinguish between the BD and Einstein-Friedmann cosmologies. An attempt is made to argue that because of the great degree of latitude in the observational constraints imposed by the BD cosmologies, efforts to improve the bound on the fractional time variation of G alone are not sufficient to rule out the BD theory.