Precise limits on cosmological variability of the fine-structure constant with zinc and chromium quasar absorption lines

Abstract

The strongest transitions of Zn and CrII are the most sensitive to relative variations in the fine-structure constant ($\Delta \alpha /\alpha$) among the transitions commonly observed in quasar absorption spectra. They also lie within just 40Å of each other (rest frame), so they are resistant to the main systematic error affecting most previous measurements of $\Delta \alpha /\alpha$: long-range distortions of the wavelength calibration. While Zn and CrII absorption is normally very weak in quasar spectra, we obtained high signal-to-noise, high-resolution echelle spectra from the Keck and Very Large Telescopes of 9 rare systems where it is strong enough to constrain $\Delta \alpha /\alpha$ from these species alone. These provide 12 independent measurements (3 quasars were observed with both telescopes) at redshifts 1.0--2.4, 11 of which pass stringent reliability criteria. These 11 are all consistent with $\Delta \alpha /\alpha =0$ within their individual uncertainties of 3.5--13 parts per million (ppm), with a weighted mean $\Delta \alpha /\alpha =1.2\pm 1.7_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm 0.9_{\mathrm{sys}}$ ppm (1$\sigma$ statistical and systematic uncertainties), indicating no significant cosmological variations in $\alpha$. This is the first statistical sample of absorbers that is resistant to long-range calibration distortions (at the $<$1 ppm level), with a precision comparable to previous large samples of $\sim$150 (distortion-affected) absorbers. Our systematic error budget is instead dominated by much shorter-range distortions repeated across echelle orders of individual spectra.

20 pages, 15 figures. Accepted by MNRAS. Quasar spectra and Zn/CrII absorption profile fits are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.51504 . v2: Erratum added (in press at MNRAS), with numerical results and figures updated accordingly; no substantial changes nor any change to conclusions

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