Do the constants of nature couple to strong gravitational fields?

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Preval, S. P. and Barstow, M. A. and Holberg, J. B. and Barrow, J. D. and Berengut, J. C. and Webb, J. K. and Dougan, D. and Hu, J.; Dufour, P. and Bergeron, P. and Fontaine, G., eds. (2015) Do the constants of nature couple to strong gravitational fields? In: 19th European Workshop on White Dwarfs. Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, 493 . Astronomical Society of the Pacific, CAN, pp. 415-418. ISBN 9781583818718 (http://aspbooks.org/custom/publications/paper/493-...)

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Abstract

Recently, white dwarf stars have found a new use in the fundamental physics community. Many prospective theories of the fundamental interactions of Nature allow traditional constants, like the fine structure constant α, to vary in some way. A study by Berengut et al. (2013) used the Fe/Ni v line measurements made by Preval et al. (2013) from the hot DA white dwarf G191-B2B, in an attempt to detect any variation in α. It was found that the Fe v lines indicated an increasing alpha, whereas the Ni v lines indicated a decreasing alpha. Possible explanations for this could be misidenti- fication of the lines, inaccurate atomic data, or wavelength dependent distortion in the spectrum. We examine the first two cases by using a high S/N reference spectrum from the hot sdO BD+28◦4211 to calibrate the Fe/Ni v atomic data. With this new data, we re-evaluate the work of Berengut et al. (2013) to derive a new constraint on the variation of alpha in a gravitational field.

ORCID iDs

Preval, S. P. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8552-0766, Barstow, M. A., Holberg, J. B., Barrow, J. D., Berengut, J. C., Webb, J. K., Dougan, D. and Hu, J.; Dufour, P., Bergeron, P. and Fontaine, G.
  • Item type:Book Section
    ID code:58882
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    30 June 2015
    Published
    Subjects:Science > Astronomy
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:29 Nov 2016 14:38
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 15:04
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/58882
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