The Effect of Time Variation in the Higgs Vacuum Expectation Value on the Cosmic Microwave Background

A time variation in the Higgs vacuum expectation value alters the electron mass and thereby changes the ionization history of the universe. This change produces a measurable imprint on the pattern of cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations. The nuclear masses and nuclear binding energies, as well as the Fermi coupling constant, are also altered, with negligible impact on the CMB. We calculate the changes in the spectrum of the CMB fluctuations as a function of the change in the electron mass. We find that future CMB experiments could be sensitive to |\Delta m_e/m_e| \sim |\Delta G_F/G_F| \sim 10^{-2} - 10^{-3}. However, we also show that a change in the electron mass is nearly, but not exactly, degenerate with a change in the fine-structure constant. If both the electron mass and the fine-structure constant are time-varying, the corresponding CMB limits are much weaker, particularly for l < 1000.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Fig. 3 modified, other minor correction

Rural travel and transport corridors Interim report

Energy and Environment Programme; SMART project - Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility in Rural TransportAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:7769.0845(OU-ECU-RR--13) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Positively and negatively large Goos-Hänchen lateral displacements from a symmetric gyrotropic slab

A detailed study on the lateral displacements of a transverse magnetic (TM) wave transmitted and reflected from a symmetric gyrotropic slab is presented. We give the analytic formulas for the transmission coefficient and the reflection coefficient, as well as the corresponding lateral displacements. It is found that due to the external magnetic field the displacement of a transmitted beam is different from that of reflected one, even for a lossless symmetric configuration. Furthermore, within the chosen frequency band, when the incident angle is near the Brewster angle, the shift of a reflected wave can be large with nonzero reflectance, and can be positive or negative depending on the direction of the applied magnetic field and the incident wave