Researchers Find Physical Constant Might Not be Constant Across the Universe

[Guest_Jim_*]

Have some science news today that I hope you find interesting. Thanks to a specific formula from the Special Theory of Relativity, chances are most people are familiar with the universal constant, c, and it being the speed of light in a vacuum. Though it might be the most famous physical constant, it is not the only constant and many of these constant have a significant impact on physics and chemistry. Even small changes to these values could alter or disrupt the all kinds of reactions, including those necessary for life. One example would be the fine structure constant which dictates the strength of the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces of Nature. A change to this constant could cause electrons to be held differently in atoms, potentially preventing chemical reactions and even causing matter to fall apart. Researchers at the University of New South Wales have made the very surprising discovery that the fine structure constant might not be so constant across the Universe.

The researchers were looking at the light from some of the most distant quasars that can be observed. Quasars are relatively small objects compared to others in the cosmos, but will emit as much energy as entire galaxies, and can be found in the distant past, some 12 to 13 billion light years away, when the Universe was still young. While looking at a specific quasar, the researchers made four measurements of the fine constant along the line of sight. On their own, these four measurements were not enough to be conclusive if there were perceptible changes to the electromagnetic force, but anomalies in the fine constant have been appearing for decades, so the researchers looked to other the work of other scientists. What the researchers found was much more surprising and weird than they had anticipated.

Not only did the new and old observations suggest the value of fine structure constant could be dependent on time, so when you look at objects farther away you get a different value, but that it is dependent on direction. When all of the measurements of the ancient quasars are combined, it appears that when looking in one direction, electromagnetism increases, but when looking in the opposite direction, electromagnetism decreases. Looking in a perpendicular direction to this line sees the fine structure constant being constant.

The research acknowledge that this could still prove to be a coincidence, that combining measurements made with different technologies, from different locations on Earth, and at different stages is hardly ideal and this result is an error or accidental. However, a team of US researchers working with X-ray observations to test properties of physics also found a directional dependency. The UNSW researchers had no knowledge of this work until it appeared in the literature but found its direction aligned with what they had found, adding weight to the idea there is more than just coincidence here.

Clearly this discovery is going to need a significant amount of additional study to determine if this is truly is more than just coincidence, and for more reasons than to just understand why a fundamental physical constant could be different in the Universe. The General Theory of Relativity is used to describe the Universe on the large scale, and so underpins the standard model of cosmology. A requirement of General Relativity, and thus cosmology, is that the Universe is isotropic as the laws of physics are concerned, meaning no matter where you are in the Universe, physics will be the same. The idea that physical constants could change with time and direction would be very disruptive to cosmology and potentially more as new questions and ideas would come up. It is already an interesting topic to consider that the Universe's properties align just right to have allowed life as we know it to form, at least on our world. Now the question can be asked if these properties are throughout the Universe or if this section supports life but others would not be able to.

The researchers see this as just the beginning of more study that seeks to study the Universe in more directions. There are new technologies being developed and deployed that will provide better data for this, and with artificial intelligence applied for analyzing the data, measurements can be automated to be faster and more precise.

Source: University of New South Wales

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