VSL theories and the Doppler peak

P. P. Avelino, C. J. A. P. Martins, G. Rocha

Resumo
We discuss constraints on so-called `varying speed of light theories' coming from the physics of the early universe. Specifically, we consider the position of the first acoustic peak of the CMB angular power spectrum, showing that the recent determination of its position by various CMB experiments, in particular BOOMERanG/NA, can be used to constrain the value of the speed of light $c$ after the epoch of last scattering. Specifically, we find that for a flat universe and a standard density of baryonic matter a variation in $c$ of up to 4% is consistent with the current observations. The position of the Doppler peak is fairly sensitive to changes in $c$, and future observations should dramatically improve this bound. On the other hand, we also find that the maximum baryonic density allowed in VSL theories is about $Omega_B h^2sim 0.06Omega_0$. We comment on the significance of these results.

Physics Letters B
Volume 483, Página 210
junho 2000