Manifestations of a spatial variation of fundamental constants on atomic clocks, Oklo, meteorites, and cosmological phenomena

TL;DR

This paper explores how terrestrial experiments, meteorite data, and cosmological observations can confirm and reveal the spatial variation of fundamental constants like alpha, which has implications for cosmology and physics.

Contribution

It proposes multiple methods to independently verify the spatial variation of fundamental constants and discusses their potential cosmological signatures.

Findings

Terrestrial measurements can corroborate astronomical observations.

Spatial variation may cause anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background.

Observable effects include anisotropy in large-scale structure and dark energy phenomena.

Abstract

The remarkable detection of a spatial variation in the fine-structure constant, alpha, from quasar absorption systems must be independently confirmed by complementary searches. In this letter, we discuss how terrestrial measurements of time-variation of the fundamental constants in the laboratory, meteorite data, and analysis of the Oklo nuclear reactor can be used to corroborate the spatial variation seen by astronomers. Furthermore, we show that spatial variation of the fundamental constants may be observable as spatial anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, the accelerated expansion (dark energy), and large-scale structure of the Universe.