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Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 151101 (2006)

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Indication of a Cosmological Variation of the
Proton-Electron Mass Ratio Based on Laboratory Measurement and Reanalysis of
H2 Spectra

E.
Reinhold,1 R.
Buning,1 U.
Hollenstein,1,2 A.
Ivanchik,3 P.
Petitjean,4,5 and W.
Ubachs1

1Laser Centre, Vrije Universiteit, De
Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2Laboratorium für Physikalische Chemie, ETH
Zürich, CH-8093, Zurich, Switzerland

3Ioffe Physical Technical Institut,
Polytekhnicheskaya 26, 194021 Saint Petersburg, Russia

4Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris–CNRS,
98-bis Boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France

5LERMA, Observatoire de Paris, 61 avenue de
l'Observatoire, F-75014 Paris, France

(Received 13 May 2005; revised 6 October 2005; published 17
April 2006)

Based on highly accurate laboratory measurements of
Lyman bands of H2 and an updated representation of the
structure of the ground X 1 and excited B 1 and C 1u states, a new set of sensitivity
coefficients Ki is derived for all lines in the
H2 spectrum, representing the dependence of their transition
wavelengths on a possible variation of the proton-electron mass ratio
µ=mp/me. Included are
local perturbation effects between B and C levels and
adiabatic corrections. The new wavelengths and Ki factors are
used to compare with a recent set of highly accurate
H2 spectral lines observed in the Q 0347-383 and
Q 0405-443 quasars, yielding a fractional change in the mass
ratio of µ/µ=(2.4±0.6)×10-5 for
a weighted fit and µ/µ=(2.0±0.6)×10-5 for an unweighted fit.
This result indicates, at a 3.5
confidence level, that µ could have decreased in the past
12 Gyr.

©2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v96/e151101

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.151101

PACS: 95.30.Dr, 14.20.Dh, 33.15.-e,
98.80.-k

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Physics
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