Limits on the time variation of the electromagnetic fine-structure constant in the low energy limit from absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars

Abstract

Most of the successful physical theories rely on the constancy of few fundamental quantities (such as the speed of light, c, the fine-structure constant, α, the proton to electron mass ratio, μ, etc), and constraining the possible time variations of these fundamental quantities is an important step toward a complete physical theory. Time variation of α can be accurately probed using absorption lines seen in the spectra of distant quasars. Here, we present the results of a detailed many-multiplet analysis performed on a new sample of Mg ii systems observed in high quality quasar spectra obtained using the Very Large Telescope. The weighted mean value of the variation in α derived from our analysis over the redshift range 0.4 ≤ z ≤ 2.3 is Δα/α = (-0.06 ± 0.06) × 10^-5. The median redshift of our sample (z≃1.55) corresponds to a look-back time of 9.7 Gyr in the most favored cosmological model today. This gives a 3σ limit, -2.5 × 10^-16 yr^-1 = (Δα/αΔt) ≤ +1.2 × 10^-16 yr^-1, for the time variation of α, that forms the strongest constraint obtained based on high redshift quasar absorption line systems.