2022/12/05 by Dinko Milaković, Chung-Chi Lee, Milaković, Dinko +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2212.02458
openalex publication_date 2022/12/05 · openalex created_date 2022/12/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This article reviews the two major recent developments that significantly improved cosmological measurements of fundamental constants derived from high resolution quasar spectroscopy. The first one is the deployment of astronomical Laser Frequency Combs on high resolution spectrographs and the second one is the development of spectral analysis tools based on Artificial Intelligence methods. The former all but eliminated the previously dominant source of instrumental uncertainty whereas the latter established optimal methods for measuring the fine structure constant (α) in quasar absorption systems. The methods can be used on data collected by the new ESPRESSO spectrograph and the future ANDES spectrograph on the Extremely Large Telescope to produce unbiased Δα/α measurements with unprecedented precision.