Varying couplings in the early universe: Correlated variations of α and G

C. J. A. P. Martins, Eloisa Menegoni, Silvia Galli, Gianpiero Mangano, and Alessandro Melchiorri
Phys. Rev. D 82, 023532 – Published 29 July 2010

Abstract

The cosmic microwave background anisotropies provide a unique opportunity to constrain simultaneous variations of the fine-structure constant α and Newton’s gravitational constant G. Those correlated variations are possible in a wide class of theoretical models. In this brief paper we show that the current data, assuming that particle masses are constant, give no clear indication for such variations, but already prefer that any relative variations in α should be of the same sign of those of G for variations of 1%. We also show that a cosmic complementarity is present with big bang nucleosynthesis and that a combination of current CMB and big bang nucleosynthesis data strongly constraints simultaneous variations in α and G. We finally discuss the future bounds achievable by the Planck satellite mission.

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  • Received 26 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.023532

©2010 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

C. J. A. P. Martins1,2, Eloisa Menegoni3, Silvia Galli4,5, Gianpiero Mangano6, and Alessandro Melchiorri4

  • 1Centro de Astrofísica, Universidade do Porto, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal
  • 2CTC, DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom
  • 3ICRA, International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, University of Rome, “La Sapienza,” Ple Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy
  • 4Physics Department and INFN, University of Rome, “La Sapienza,” Ple Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Rome, Italy
  • 5Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie (APC), Université Paris Diderot, 75205 Paris cedex 13, France
  • 6INFN, Sezione di Napoli, and Physics Department, University of Naples “Federico II,” Via Cintia, 80126 Naples, Italy

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Issue

Vol. 82, Iss. 2 — 15 July 2010

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