Measuring the speed of light with updated Hubble diagram of high-redshift standard candles

Abstract

The possible time variation of the fundamental constants of nature has been an active subject of research in modern physics. In this paper, we propose a new method to investigate such possible time variation of the speed of light $c$ using the updated Hubble diagram of high-redshift standard candles including Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) and high-redshift quasars (based on UV-X relation). Our findings show that the SNe Ia Pantheon sample, combined with currently available sample of cosmic chronometers, would produce robust constraints on the speed of light at the level of $c/c_0=1.03\pm 0.03$. For the Hubble diagram of UV+X ray quasars acting as a new type of standard candles, we obtain $c/c_0=1.19\pm 0.07$. Therefore, our results confirm that there is no strong evidence for the deviation from the constant speed of light up to $z\sim 2$. Moreover, we discuss how our technique might be improved at much higher redshifts ($z\sim 5$), focusing on future measurements of the acceleration parameter $X(z)$ with gravitational waves (GWs) from binary neutron star mergers. In particular, in the framework of the second-generation space-based GW detector, DECi-hertz Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (DECIGO), the speed of light is expected to be constrained with the precision of $\Delta c/c=10^{-3}$.

11 pages,8 figures, accepted by ApJ

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• 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