Local Experiments See Cosmologically Varying Constants

Abstract

We describe a rigorous construction, using matched asymptotic expansions, which establishes under very general conditions that local terrestrial and solar-system experiments will measure the effects of varying `constants' of Nature occurring on cosmological scales to computable precision. In particular, `constants' driven by scalar fields will still be found to evolve in time when observed within virialised structures like clusters, galaxies, and planetary systems. This provides a justification for combining cosmological and terrestrial constraints on the possible time variation of many assumed `constants' of Nature, including the fine structure constant and Newton's gravitation constant.

6 pages

References in corpus (2)

• The Local Effects of Cosmological Variations in Physical 'Constants' and Scalar Fields I. Spherically Symmetric Spacetimes
• The Local Effects of Cosmological Variations in Physical 'Constants' and Scalar Fields II. Quasi-Spherical Spacetimes

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