Light Element Nucleosynthesis
Astrophysics
2009-10-31 v1
Abstract
An introductory review of the early evolution of the Universe relevant to the primordial synthesis of the light nuclides deuterium, helium-3, helium-4 and lithium-7. The predictions of the element abundances in the "standard", hot, big bang cosmological model (SBBN) are described. After descriptions of the evolution of the primordial abundances from "there and then" to "here and now", the SBBN predictions are compared to current observational data. The implications for the standard model and for physics beyond the standard model are discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0009506,
title = {Light Element Nucleosynthesis},
author = {Gary Steigman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0009506},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
12 pages, 5 postscript figures; To appear in the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Institute of Physics) December, 2000