An Environmental Variation of Constants

Abstract

Models of modified gravity, whereby local tests of gravity are evaded thanks to a screening mechanism of the chameleon or Damour-Polyakov types, lead to a spatial variation of the particle masses and the fine structure constant. This is triggered by the environmental dependence of the value of the scalar field whose presence modifies gravity. In dense media, the field settles at a density dependent value while in sparse environments it takes the background cosmological value. We estimate that the maximal deviation of constants from their present values is constrained by local tests of gravity, and must be less than $10^{-6}$.

14 pages, 7 figures, published version

References in corpus (12)

• Dynamics of dark energy
• Models of f(R) Cosmic Acceleration that Evade Solar-System Tests
• Environmental Dependence of Masses and Coupling Constants
• Spatial variation in the fine-structure constant -- new results from VLT/UVES
• Lunar Laser Ranging Tests of the Equivalence Principle
• Tidal Tails Test the Equivalence Principle in the Dark Sector
• Robust Constraint on a Drifting Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio at z=0.89 from Methanol Observation at Three Radio Telescopes
• Anomalous coupling of scalars to gauge fields
• Limits on the spatial variations of the electron-to-proton mass ratio in the Galactic plane
• How changing physical constants and violation of local position invariance may occur?
• Stringent bounds to spatial variations of the electron-to-proton mass ratio in the Milky Way
• Spatial variations of the fine-structure constant in symmetron models

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Gravitational radiation from compact binary systems in screened modified gravity
• A constraint on a varying proton--electron mass ratio 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang
• Post-Newtonian parameters and cosmological constant of screened modified gravity
• Searching for scalar gravitational interactions in current and future cosmological data
• Limits on a Gravitational Field Dependence of the Proton--Electron Mass Ratio from H${}_2$ in White Dwarf Stars
• Constraining screened fifth forces with the electron magnetic moment
• Testing the variability of the proton-to-electron mass ratio from observations of methanol in the dark cloud core L1498
• Testing the weak equivalence principle by differential measurements of fundamental constants in the Magellanic Clouds
• Reappraisal of the limit on the variation in $\alpha$ implied by Oklo
• Searching for Chameleon Dark Energy with Mechanical Systems
• [CI], [CII] and CO emission lines as a probe for alpha variations at low and high redshifts