Which fundamental constants for cosmic microwave background and baryon-acoustic oscillation?
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: We use the three-scale framework of Hu et al. to show how the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy spectrum depends on the fundamental constants.As expected, the spectrum depends only on dimensionless combinations of the constants, and we emphasize the points that make this generally true for cosmological observables.Our analysis suggests that the CMB spectrum shape is mostly determined by α 2 m e /m p and by m p /m χ , the proton-CDM-particle mass ratio.The distance to the last-scattering surface depends on Gm p m χ / c, so published CMB observational limits on time variations of the constants implicitly assume the time independence of this quantity, as well as a flat-ΛCDM cosmological model.On the other hand, low-redshift baryon-acoustic oscillation, H 0 , and baryon-mass-fraction measurements can be combined with the shape of the CMB spectrum to give information that is largely independent of these assumptions.In particular, we show that the pre-recombination values of Gm 2 χ / c, m p /m χ , and α 2 m e /m p are equal to their present values at a precision of ∼15%. Key words. cosmic background radiation
Source: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Author: James Rich
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3100074287