ASTROPHYSICS, CLOCKS AND FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS

By I. LIZAE

CONTENTS AN INTRODUCTION TO VARYING FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS TIME AND THE UNIVERSE MILLISECOND PULSARS AS TOOLS OF FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS FUNDAMENTAL UNITS: PHYSICS AND METROLOGY CONSTANTS, UNITS AND STANDARDS TIME VARYING FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS, EXTRA DIMENSIONS AND THE RENORMALIZATION GROUP FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS AND THEIR POSSIBLE TIME DEPENDENCE CONSTRAINING VARIATIONS IN THE FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT, QUARK MASSES AND THE STRONG INTERACTION ASTROPHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS ON HYPOTHETICAL VARIABILITY OF FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS OKLO CONSTRAINT ON THE TIME-VARIABILITY OF THE FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT COLD ATOM CLOCKS, PRECISION OSCILLATORS AND FUNDAMENTAL TESTS PRECISION SPECTROSCOPY OF ATOMIC HYDROGEN AND VARIATIONS OF FUNDAMENTAL CONSTANTS AN OPTICAL FREQUENCY STANDARD WITH COLD AND ULTRA-COLD CALCIUM ATOMS TRAPPED ION OPTICAL FREQUENCY STANDARDS FOR LABORATORY TESTS OF ALPHA-VARIABILITY AN OPTICAL FREQUENCY STANDARD BASED ON THE INDIUM ION APPLICATIONS OF FEMTOSECOND LASER COMB TO NONLINEAR MOLECULAR SPECTROSCOPY ULTRACOLD TRAPPED MOLECULES: NOVEL SYSTEMS FOR TESTS OF THE TIME-INDEPENDENCE OF THE ELECTRON-TO-PROTON MASS RATIO 35 YEARS OF TESTING RELATIVISTIC GRAVITY: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? SEARCH FOR NEW PHYSICS WITH ATOMIC CLOCKS