Four direct measurements of the fine-structure constant 13 billion years ago

Michael R Wilczynska; John K Webb; Matthew Bainbridge; John D Barrow; Sarah E I Bosman; Robert F Carswell; Mariusz P Dąbrowski; Vincent Dumont; Chung-Chi Lee; Ana Catarina Leite; Katarzyna Leszczyńska; Jochen Liske; Konrad Marosek; Carlos J A P Martins; Dinko Milaković; Paolo Molaro; Luca Pasquini

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay9672

Four direct measurements of the fine-structure constant 13 billion years ago

Sci Adv. 2020 Apr 24;6(17):eaay9672. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay9672. Print 2020 Apr.

Authors

Michael R Wilczynska¹, John K Webb², Matthew Bainbridge³, John D Barrow⁴, Sarah E I Bosman⁵, Robert F Carswell⁶, Mariusz P Dąbrowski⁷, Vincent Dumont⁸, Chung-Chi Lee⁴, Ana Catarina Leite^{9

10

11}, Katarzyna Leszczyńska⁷, Jochen Liske¹², Konrad Marosek¹³, Carlos J A P Martins^{9

10}, Dinko Milaković^{14

15}, Paolo Molaro¹⁶, Luca Pasquini¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ University of New South Wales Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
² University of New South Wales Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. jkw@phys.unsw.edu.au.
³ College of Science and Engineering, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE17RH, UK.
⁴ DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK.
⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
⁶ Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK.
⁷ Institute of Physics, University of Szczecin, Wielkopolska 15, 70-451 Szczecin, Poland.
⁸ Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
⁹ Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal.
¹⁰ Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, CAUP, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal.
¹¹ Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, 4150-007 Porto, Portugal.
¹² Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg, Gojenbergsweg 112, D-21029 Hamburg, Germany.
¹³ Maritime University, Wały Chrobrego 1-2, 70-500 Szczecin, Poland.
¹⁴ European Southern Observatory, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany.
¹⁵ Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, 80799 Munich, Germany.
¹⁶ National Institute for Astrophysics, Astronomical Observatory of Trieste, Via G.B. Tiepolo 11, I34134, Italy.

Abstract

Observations of the redshift z = 7.085 quasar J1120+0641 are used to search for variations of the fine structure constant, α, over the redshift range 5.5 to 7.1. Observations at z = 7.1 probe the physics of the universe at only 0.8 billion years old. These are the most distant direct measurements of α to date and the first measurements using a near-IR spectrograph. A new AI analysis method is employed. Four measurements from the x-shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) constrain changes in a relative to the terrestrial value (α₀). The weighted mean electromagnetic force in this location in the universe deviates from the terrestrial value by Δα/α = (α _z - α₀)/α₀ = (-2.18 ± 7.27) × 10^-5, consistent with no temporal change. Combining these measurements with existing data, we find a spatial variation is preferred over a no-variation model at the 3.9σ level.

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