Probing the Time Variation of a Fine Structure Constant Using Galaxy Clusters and the Quintessence Model

Abstract

We explore a possible time variation of the fine structure constant ( α ≡ e 2 / ℏ c ) using the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect measurements of galaxy clusters along with their X-ray observations. Specifically, the ratio of the integrated Comptonization parameter Y SZ D A 2 and its X-ray counterpart Y X is used as an observable to constrain the bounds on the variation of α . Considering the violation of the cosmic distance duality relation, this ratio depends on the fine structure constant of ∼ α 3 . We use the quintessence model to provide the origin of α time variation. In order to give a robust test on α variation, two galaxy cluster samples, the 61 clusters provided by the Planck collaboration and the 58 clusters detected by the South Pole Telescope (SPT), are collected for analysis. Their X-ray observations are given by the XMM-Newton survey. Our results give ζ = − 0.203 − 0.099 + 0.101 for the Planck sample and ζ = − 0.043 − 0.148 + 0.165 for the SPT sample, indicating that α is constant with redshift within 3 σ and 1 σ for the two samples, respectively.