Can a Changing α Explain the Supernovae Results?

Abstract

We show that the Supernovae results, implying evidence for an accelerating Universe, may be closely related to the recent discovery of redshift dependence in the fine structure constant $\alpha$. The link is a class of varying speed of light (VSL) theories which contain cosmological solutions similar to quintessence. During the radiation dominated epoch the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is prevented from dominating the Universe by the usual VSL mechanism. In the matter epoch the varying c effects switch off, allowing $\Lambda$ to eventually surface and lead to an accelerating Universe. By the time this happens the residual variations in c imply a changing $\alpha$ at a rate that is in agreement with observations.