English

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Initial Conditions: Revisiting Wagoner et al. (1967)

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-02-20 v1

Abstract

We revisit Wagoner et al. (1967), a classic contribution in the development of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We demonstrate that it presents an incorrect expression for the temperature of the early universe as a function of time in the high temperature limit, T1010T \gtrsim 10^{10}K. As this incorrect expression has been reproduced elsewhere, we present a corrected form for the initial conditions required for calculating the formation of the primordial elements in the Big Bang.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2104.10311,
  title  = {Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Initial Conditions: Revisiting Wagoner et al. (1967)},
  author = {Charlie Sharpe and Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.10311},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Comment on classic BBN paper by Wagoner et al. (1967) - 3 pages, accepted for publication in the RNAAS