I present a brief review on the determination of the primordial helium abundance by unit mass, Yp. I discuss the importance of the primordial helium abundance in: (a) cosmology, (b) testing the standard big bang nucleosynthesis, (c) studying the physical conditions in H II regions, (d) providing the initial conditions for stellar evolution models, and (e) testing the galactic chemical evolution models.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0811.2980,
title = {The Primordial Helium Abundance},
author = {Manuel Peimbert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0811.2980},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
27 pages, 8 figures. Appeared in Current Science, vol. 95, pg. 1165-1176, 2008. (http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/nov102008/1165.pdf)