Fast apparent oscillations of fundamental constants

Understand

Precision spectroscopy of atoms and molecules allows one to search for and to put stringent limits on the variation of fundamental constants.

• These experiments are typically interpreted in terms of variations of the fine structure constant $\alpha$ and the electron to proton mass ratio $\mu=m_e/m_p$.
• Atomic spectroscopy is usually less sensitive to other fundamental constants, unless the hyperfine structure of atomic levels is studied.
• However, the number of possible dimensionless constants increases when we allow for fast variations of the constants, where "fast" is determined by the time scale of the response of the studied species or experimental apparatus used.