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Using quasars as standard clocks for measuring cosmological redshift

  • De Chang Dai
  • , Glenn D. Starkman
  • , Branislav Stojkovic
  • , Dejan Stojkovic
  • , Amanda Weltman
  • University of Cape Town
  • Case Western Reserve University
  • SUNY Buffalo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report hitherto unnoticed patterns in quasar light curves. We characterize segments of the quasar's light curves with the slopes of the straight lines fit through them. These slopes appear to be directly related to the quasars' redshifts. Alternatively, using only global shifts in time and flux, we are able to find significant overlaps between the light curves of different pairs of quasars by fitting the ratio of their redshifts. We are then able to reliably determine the redshift of one quasar from another. This implies that one can use quasars as standard clocks, as we explicitly demonstrate by constructing two independent methods of finding the redshift of a quasar from its light curve.

Original languageEnglish
Article number231302
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume108
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 4 2012

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