Varying Coupling Constants and Their Interdependence

TL;DR

This paper explores the interconnected variations of fundamental constants like $c$, $G$, $h$, and $k$, showing that constraining one affects the others and challenging methods to measure their individual variations.

Contribution

It demonstrates the interdependence of fundamental constants and argues that their variations cannot be studied in isolation, impacting experimental approaches.

Findings

The constants $G$, $c$, $h$, and $k$ are mathematically interrelated.

Constraining one constant also constrains the others.

The Kibble balance cannot independently measure variations in $h$ due to these interdependencies.

Abstract

Since Dirac predicted in 1937 possible variation of gravitational constant and other coupling constants from his large number hypothesis, efforts continue to determine such variation without success. Such efforts focus on the variation of one constant while assuming all others pegged to their currently measured values. We show that the variations of the speed of light $c$, the gravitational constant $G$, the Planck constant $h$, and the Boltzmann constant $k$ are interrelated: $G\thicksim c^{3}\thicksim h^{3/2}\thicksim k^{3/2}$. Thus, constraining any one of the constants leads to inadvertently constraining all the others. It may not be possible to determine the variation of a constant without concurrently considering the variation of others. We discuss several astrophysical observations that have been explained recently with the concomitant variation of two or more constants. We also analyze the reported and unexplained 35 micro-gram decrease of 1 Kg Pt-Ir working standards over 22 years of measurements and show that the Kibble balance, that measures mass in units of Planck constant, cannot determine the variation of h when h and c variations are interrelated as determined in here.