Variations of alpha in space and time

John D. Barrow, João Magueijo, Håvard Bunes Sandvik
2002 Physical Review D, Particles and fields  
We study inhomogeneous cosmological variations in the fine structure 'constant', α , in Friedmann universes. Inhomogeneous motions of the scalar field driving changes in α display spatial oscillations that decrease in amplitude with increasing time. The inhomogeneous evolution quickly approaches that found for exact Friedmann universes. We prove a theorem to show that oscillations of α in time (or redshift) cannot occur in Friedmann universes in the BSBM theories considered here.
doi:10.1103/physrevd.66.043515 fatcat:dorx4mbiirdrbpje4zwipnflta