Running vacuum in the Universe and the time variation of the fundamental constants of Nature

Abstract

We compute the time variation of the fundamental constants (such as the ratio of the proton mass to the electron mass, the strong coupling constant, the fine structure constant and Newton's constant) within the context of the so-called running vacuum models (RVM's) of the cosmic evolution. Recently, compelling evidence has been provided that these models are able to fit the main cosmological data (SNIa+BAO+H(z)+LSS+BBN+CMB) significantly better than the concordance ΛCDM model. Specifically, the vacuum parameters of the RVM (i.e. those responsible for the dynamics of the vacuum energy) prove to be nonzero at a confidence level 3σ. Here we use such remarkable status of the RVM's to make definite predictions on the cosmic time variation of the fundamental constants. It turns out that the predicted variations are close to the present observational limits. Furthermore, we find that the time evolution of the dark matter particle masses should be crucially involved in the total mass variation of our Universe. A positive measurement of this kind of effects could be interpreted as strong support to the "micro and macro connection" (viz. the dynamical feedback between the evolution of the cosmological parameters and the time variation of the fundamental constants of the microscopic world), previously proposed by two of us (HF and JS).

First Evidence of Running Cosmic Vacuum: Challenging the Concordance Model

“…This behavior has been used in the works by Fritzsch & Solà (2012 as a possible explanation for the hints on the time variation of the fundamental constants, such as coupling constants and particle masses, frequently considered in the literature. The current observational values for such time variation are actually compatible with the fitted values we have found here.…”

“…But soon also played a role as a strategy to endow the vacuum and the CC of some time dependence in a QFT context, Λ = Λ(φ(t)), and in some cases with the purpose to adjust dynamically its value. Some of the old approaches to the CC problem from the scalar field perspective are the works by Endo & Fukui (1977,1982; Fujii (1982); Dolgov (1983); Abbott (1985); Zee (1985); Barr (1987); Ford (1987); Weiss (1987). Among the proposed dynamical mechanisms, let us mention the cosmon model (Peccei, Solà & Wetterich 1987), which was subsequently discussed in detail by Weinberg (1989).…”

Cosmological constant vis-à-vis dynamical vacuum: Bold challenging the ΛCDM

“…Assuming that the anomalous mass density law in eq. ( 28) is a direct reflect of the change of the particle masses, the anomalous fractional mass density time variation of the Universe can be estimated as follows [23,25]:…”

“…Being ν b a small parameter, which is related to the fitted : Data points on the relative variation ∆α em /α em at different redshifts (in ppm). For the exact numerical values and observational references, see Table 1 of [25]. The solid and dashed lines correspond to the theoretical combined RVM-GUT prediction based on formula (71) for the values ν b = 10 −4 and 10 −5 , respectively.…”

Constraints on running vacuum model withH(z) andfσ8

“…In this model, the cosmological constant Λ is described by a function of the Hubble parameter and decays to matter and radiation in the expansion of the universe [8]. It has been shown that the RVM is suitable in describing the cosmological evolution on both background and linear perturbation levels [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”