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J/A+AS/104/89 Study of fine-structure constants (Potekhin+ 1994)
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Non-variability of the fine-structure constants over cosmological time scale
Potekhin A.Y., Varshalovich D.A.
<Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 104, 89 (1994)>
=1994A&AS..104...89P
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ADC_Keywords: Atomic physics; QSOs
Keywords: quasars: general - catalogues - cosmology - quasars: absorption lines
Abstract:
A statistical analysis of fine splitting of C IV, N V, O VI, Mg II,
Al III and Si IV doublet absorption lines in quasar spectra is
carried out in order to estimate a possible time variation of the
fine-structure constant {alpha}= e^2^(h/2{pi})c (~1/137) over
cosmological time scales t~10^10^yr. The observational basis of the
analysis is a catalogue of 1414 pairs of wavelengths with redshifts
z = 0.2 - 3.7, compiled from data published in 1980-1992. Robust
statistical estimates like the ``trimmed mean'' are used as well as
the least squares. No statistically significant time variation of
{alpha} is found. The estimate {alpha}^-1^d{alpha}/dz =
(-0.6+/-2.8)10^-4^ is obtained. For the 95% significance level, an
upper bound on the rate of a relative variation of the
fine-structure constant is |{alpha}^-1^d{alpha}/dz| < 5.6x10^-4^,
which corresponds approximately to |{alpha}^-1^d{alpha}/dt| <
4x10^-14^ yr^-1^. This limit represents the strongest up-to-date
restriction on the possible time variation of {alpha} for the epoch
0.2 <= z <~ 4.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2 56 741 *C IV absorption wavelengths
table3 80 46 *N V absorption wavelengths
table4 55 13 *O VI absorption wavelengths
table5 55 404 *Mg II absorption wavelengths
table6 55 42 *Al III absorption wavelengths
table7 55 168 *Si IV absorption wavelengths
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Note on table2, table3, table4, table5, table6, table7:
The lines were observed with signal-to-noise ratio S/N = 10-100,
typically S/N~20. The effective spectral resolution was FWHM = 0.08-1 A
in Ref [1], [15], [19], [23], [24], [26], [30], [33], [49], [51], [55]
and [57]; FWHM = 4-6 A in Ref [22], [28], [38], [42], [43], [46], [48],
[52], [53] and [56]; and FWHM 1-3 A in other Ref.
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2 table3 table4 table5 table6 table7
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 10 A10 --- QSO QSO number
13- 19 F7.5 --- z redshift
21- 27 F7.2 0.1nm lambda1 Observed wavelength
28 A1 --- n_lambda1 [ a] When a, air wavelength, else
the wavelength is vacuum heliocentric
31- 37 F7.2 0.1nm lamdba2 Observed wavelength
38 A1 --- n_lambda2 [ a] When a, air wavelength, else
the wavelength is vacuum heliocentric
42- 43 I2 --- ref Reference
50- 55 F6.3 --- Y Observational estimate of Delta(alpha)/alpha
(alpha = fine-structure constant)
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(End) Patricia Bauer [CDS] 10-Nov-1993