Constraints on the time variation of the fine structure constant by the 5-year WMAP data

Abstract

The constraints on the time variation of the fine structure constant at recombination epoch relative to its present value, $\Delta \alpha /\alpha \equiv ({\alpha }_{\mathrm{rec}}-{\alpha }_{\mathrm{now}})/{\alpha }_{\mathrm{now}}$, are obtained from the analysis of the 5-year WMAP cosmic microwave background data. As a result of Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo analysis, it is found that, contrary to the analysis based on the previous WMAP data, the mean value of $\Delta \alpha /\alpha =-0.0009$ does not change significantly whether we use the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) measurement of the Hubble parameter as a prior or not. The resultant 95% confidence ranges of $\Delta \alpha /\alpha$ are $-0.028<\Delta \alpha /\alpha <0.026$ with HST prior and $-0.050<\Delta \alpha /\alpha <0.042$ without HST prior.

11 pages, 5 figures; references added

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