Examining the validity of the minimal varying speed of light model through cosmological observations: relaxing the null curvature constraint

Abstract

We revisit a consistency test for the speed of light variability, using the latest cosmological observations. This exercise can serve as a new diagnostics for the standard cosmological model and distinguish between the minimal varying speed of light in the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universe. We deploy Gaussian processes to reconstruct cosmic distances and ages in the redshift range $0<z<2$ utilizing the Pantheon compilation of type-Ia supernova luminosity distances (SN), cosmic chronometers from differential galaxy ages (CC), and measurements of both radial and transverse modes of baryon acoustic oscillations ($r$-BAO and $a$-BAO) respectively. Such a test has the advantage of being independent of any non-zero cosmic curvature assumption - which can be degenerated with some variable speed of light models - as well as any dark energy model. We also examine the impact of cosmological priors on our analysis, such as the Hubble constant, supernova absolute magnitude, and the sound horizon scale. We find null evidence for the speed of light variability hypothesis for most choices of priors and data-set combinations. However, mild deviations are seen at $\sim 2\sigma$ confidence level for redshifts $z<1$ with some specific prior choices when $r$-BAO data is employed, and at $z>1$ with a particular reconstruction kernel when $a$-BAO data are included. Still, we ascribe no statistical significance to this result bearing in mind the degeneracy between the associated priors for combined analysis, and incompleteness of the $a$-BAO data set at higher $z$.

15 pages, 8 sets of figures, revised version, including a change in title, to appear in Phys. Dark Univ

References in corpus (27)

• Dynamics of dark energy
• A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km/s/Mpc Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team
• In the Realm of the Hubble tension $-$ a Review of Solutions
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Cosmological Implications from two Decades of Spectroscopic Surveys at the Apache Point observatory
• Dark Energy Survey Year 3 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Galaxy Clustering and Weak Lensing
• Raising the bar: new constraints on the Hubble parameter with cosmic chronometers at z$\sim$2
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyα forest of BOSS DR11 quasars
• Cosmic Distances Calibrated to 1% Precision with Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes and Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of 75 Milky Way Cepheids Confirm Tension with LambdaCDM
• Measurements of the Hubble Constant: Tensions in Perspective
• Cosmology Intertwined II: The Hubble Constant Tension
• Cosmology Intertwined III: $f{\sigma }_8$ and $S_8$
• Dark Energy Survey Year 3 Results: Cosmology from Cosmic Shear and Robustness to Modeling Uncertainty
• Gaussian Process Cosmography
• To H0 or not to H0?
• Baryon acoustic oscillations from the complete SDSS-III Ly$\alpha$-quasar cross-correlation function at $z=2.4$
• Toward a Better Understanding of Cosmic Chronometers: A new measurement of H(z) at z~0.7
• On the use of the local prior on the absolute magnitude of Type Ia supernovae in cosmological inference
• BAO angular scale at z_eff = 0.11 with the SDSS blue galaxies
• Non-parametric reconstruction of the cosmological \textit{jerk} parameter
• Note on Varying Speed of Light Cosmologies
• The minimally extended Varying Speed of Light (meVSL)
• Measuring the speed of light with Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
• Cosmology with relativistically varying physical constants
• Comments on "Note on varying speed of light theories"
• Variation of the speed of light and a minimum speed in the scenario of an inflationary universe with accelerated expansion
• Testing a varying-$\Lambda$ model for dark energy within Co-varying Physical Couplings framework
• Constraining Coupling Constants' Variation with Supernovae, Quasars, and GRBs

Cited by in corpus (6)

• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• Non-parametric reconstruction of cosmological observables using Gaussian Processes Regression
• Measuring the speed of light with cosmological observations: current constraints and forecasts
• Stringent constraint on the CCC+TL cosmology with $H(z)$ Measurements
• New analysis of SNeIa Pantheon Catalog: Variable speed of light as an alternative to dark energy
• A mechanism to generate varying speed of light via Higgs-dilaton coupling: Theory and cosmological applications