2000/08/29 by P. P. Avelino, C. J. A. P. Martins, G. Rocha +2 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Differential Geometry Research #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.62.123508
published as Phys.Rev.D62:123508,2000 · 15 pages; submitted to Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 2000/08/29 · openalex publication_date 2000/11/21 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We perform a likelihood analysis of the recently released BOOMERanG and MAXIMA data, allowing for the possibility of a time-varying fine-structure constant. We find that in general these data prefer a value of \ensuremathα that was smaller in the past (which is in agreement with measurements of \ensuremathα from quasar observations). However, there are some interesting degeneracies in the problem which imply that strong statements about \ensuremathα cannot be made using this method until independent accurate determinations of \ensuremathΩbh2 and H0 are available. We also show that a preferred lower value of \ensuremathα comes mainly from the data points around the first Doppler peak, whereas the main effect of the high-l data points is to increase the preferred value for \ensuremathΩbh2 (while also tightening the constraints on \ensuremathΩ0 and H0). We comment on some implications of our results.