2013/09/30 by P. O. J. Pedrosa, Pedrosa, P. O. J., A. C. O. Leite +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #astro-ph.CO #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1309.7770
To appear in the Proceedings of the Sesto Conference on Varying Fundamental Constants and Dynamical Dark Energy (Sesto, Italy, July 8-13, 2013)
arxiv created 2013/09/30 · arxiv updated 2013/10/01
The observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete, if not incorrect. Several few-sigma hints of new physics, discussed in this workshop, are arguably smoke without a smoking gun. Forthcoming high-resolution ultra-stable spectrographs will play a crucial role in this quest for new physics, by enabling a new generation of precision consistency tests. Here we focus on astrophysical tests of the stability of nature's fundamental couplings, discussing the improvements that can be expected with ESPRESSO and ELT-HIRES and their impact on fundamental cosmology. We find that the current E-ELT configuration has the potential to constrain dark energy more strongly than standard surveys with thousands of low-redshift (z<2) supernovas.