2004/08/31 by Hum Chand, Patrick Petitjean, P. Petitjean +4 · 1 citation
Decision Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Scientific Measurement and Uncertainty Evaluation #Scientific Research and Discoveries #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #physics.acc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20041186
12 Pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. In addition to minor corrections an appendix is added in this revised version
arxiv created 2004/10/08 · openalex publication_date 2005/01/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We report a new constraint on the variation of the fine-structure constant based on the analysis of 15 Si iv doublets selected from a ESO-UVES sample. We find = over a redshift range of which is consistent with no variation in α. This result represents a factor of three improvement on the constraint on based on Si iv doublets compared to the published results in the literature. The alkali doublet method used here avoids the implicit assumptions used in the many-multiplet method that chemical and ionization inhomogeneities are negligible and isotopic abundances are close to the terrestrial value.