Reading Relic Radiation
Using radiation signatures left from the birth of the universe, astrophysicists at the University of Illinois have proposed a new way of measuring what the fine-structure constant's value was in the past, and comparing it with today's.
“If the fine-structure constant does vary over time and space, we could use it as a probe of new physics beyond the standard model and beyond general relativity,” said Benjamin Wandelt, an associate professor of physics and of astronomy at Illinois, who developed the proposed measurement technique with graduate student Rishi Khatri. Read more...
This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and by allotments of computing time from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications through its National Science Foundation funding. The conclusions presented are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funding agencies.