1992/09/10 by Lawrence M. Krauss, David N. Schramm, David Schramm · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/186761
published as Astrophys.J. 405 (1993) L43-L46 · 10 pages plus 4 figures (not included)
arxiv created 1992/09/10 · openalex publication_date 1993/03/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The lensing effect of curved space, which can cause the angular diameter of a fixed reference length seen on the sky to reach a minimum and then increase with redshift, depends sensitively on the value of the cosmological constant, Λ, in a flat universe. The redshift of an observed minimum and the asymptotic slope can in principle provide strong constraints on Λ. The sensitivity to a non-zero cosmological constant in a flat universe is compared to the sensitivity to q0 in an open universe without a cosmological constant, and to inherent ambiguities due to uncertainties in distance measures and the possible effects of evolution. If evolutionary uncertainties can be overcome, the reported observations of the angular diameter of compact radio jets as a function of redshift, which appear to exhibit such a minimum, could provide the strongest available limit on the cosmological constant in a flat universe, and on Ω in an open universe.