On the cosmological evolution of alpha and mu and the dynamics of dark energy

Abstract

We study the cosmological evolution of the fine structure constant, $\alpha$, and the proton-to-electron mass ratio, $\mu =m_p/m_e$, in the context of a generic class of models where the gauge kinetic function is a linear function of a quintessence-type real scalar field, $\varphi$, described by a Lagrangian with a standard kinetic term and a scalar field potential, $V(\varphi )$. We further assume that the scalar field potential is a monotonic function of $\varphi$ and that the scalar field is always rolling down the potential. We show that, for this class of models, low-redshift constrains on the evolution of $\alpha$ and $\mu$ can provide very stringent limits on the corresponding variations at high-redshift. We also demonstrate that these limits may be relaxed by considering more general models for the dynamics of $\alpha$ and $\mu$. However, in this case, the ability to reconstruct the evolution of the dark energy equation of state using varying couplings could be seriously compromised.

5 pages

References in corpus (10)

• New Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries of Type Ia Supernovae at z > 1: Narrowing Constraints on the Early Behavior of Dark Energy
• Environmental Dependence of Masses and Coupling Constants
• Coupled Variations of Fundamental Couplings and Primordial Nucleosynthesis
• Revision of VLT/UVES constraints on a varying fine-structure constant
• Limit on the Temporal Variation of the Fine-Structure Constant Using Atomic Dysprosium
• Time-variability of alpha from realistic models of Oklo reactors
• Reconstructing the dark energy equation of state with varying couplings
• Constraints on time variation of fine structure constant from WMAP-3yr data
• Possible time-variability of the fine-structure constant expected from the accelerating universe
• Big bang nucleosynthesis as a probe of fundamental "constants"

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Localized D-dimensional global k-defects
• Lagrangian description of cosmic fluids: mapping dark energy into unified dark energy
• On-shell Lagrangian of an ideal gas
• Cosmic Variation of Proton to Electron Mass Ratio with an interacting Higgs Scalar Field
• Observational Constraints on Varying Alpha in $\Lambda (\alpha )$CDM Cosmology
• Impact of the matter density uncertainty on the dark energy reconstruction