Consistency test of the fine-structure constant from the whole ionization history

2022/07/14 by Ke Wang, Lu Chen, Wang, Ke +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2207.06719

openalex publication_date 2022/07/14 · openalex created_date 2022/07/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

In cosmology, the fine-structure constant can affect the whole ionization history. However, the previous works confine themselves to the recombination epoch and give various strong constraints on the fine-structure constant. In this paper, we also take the reionization epoch into consideration and do a consistency test of the fine-structure constant from the whole ionization history. From the data combination of Planck 2018, BAO data, SNIa samples, SFR density from UV and IR measurements, and the Q_HII constraints, we find the constraint on the fine-structure constant during the recombination epoch is α_rec/α_EM=1.001494^+0.002041_-0.002063 and its counterpart during the reionization epoch is α_rei/α_EM=0.854034^+0.031678_-0.027209 at 68% C.L.. They are not consistent with each other by 4.64σ. A conservative explanation for such a discrepancy is that there are some issues in the data we used. We prefer a calibration of some important parameters involved in reconstructing the reionization history.

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