Abstract
Astrophysical tests of the stability of Nature's fundamental couplings are a key probe of the standard paradigms in fundamental physics and cosmology. In this report we discuss updated constraints on the stability of the fine-structure constant α and the proton-to-electron mass ratio μ=mp/me within the Galaxy. We revisit and improve upon the analysis by Truppe et al. [1] by allowing for the possibility of simultaneous variations of both couplings and also by combining them with the recent measurements by Levshakov et al. [2]. By considering representative unification scenarios we find no evidence for variations of α at the 0.4 ppm level, and of μ at the 0.6 ppm level; if one uses the [2] bound on μ as a prior, the α bound is improved to 0.1 ppm. We also highlight how these measurements can constrain (and discriminate among) several fundamental physics paradigms.
Highlights
Nature’s dimensionless fundamental couplings are among the deepest mysteries of modern physics: it is clear that they play a crucial role in physical theories, and yet we have no ’theory of constants’ that describes what this role is
An unambiguous detection of varying dimensionless fundamental couplings will be revolutionary: it will establish that the Einstein equivalence principle is violated and that there is a fifth force of nature
The rest frequency emitted by the astrophysical source and the laboratory frequency are related by ωast = ωlab where Kα and Kμ are the sensitivity coefficients for the transition in question, quantifying how much it is affected by a given amount of change in α and μ
Summary
Nature’s dimensionless fundamental couplings are among the deepest mysteries of modern physics: it is clear that they play a crucial role in physical theories, and yet we have no ’theory of constants’ that describes what this role is. [1] derived a set of constraints on the stability of fundamental couplings by comparing laboratory and astrophysical measurements of selected microwave transitions in CH and OH
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