Related papers: Is Primordial He Truly from Big Bang ?
We explore the consequences of an early population of intermediate mass stars in the 2 - 8 M\odot range on cosmic chemical evolution. We discuss the implications of this population as it pertains to several cosmological and astrophysical…
In this paper we consider the effects on big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) of the hadronic decay of a long-lived massive particle. If high-energy hadrons are emitted near the BBN epoch ($t \sim 10^{-2}$ -- $10^2 \sec$), they extraordinarily…
We reconsider the effects of unstable particles on the production and destruction of the primordial light elements, with a view to reconciling the high primordial Li7 abundance deduced from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), as implied by the…
A number of possible mechanisms have been suggested to generate density inhomogeneities in the early Universe which could survive until the onset of primordial nucleosynthesis and generate neutron-rich regions. In this work we are not…
Type I planetary nebulae (PNe) have high He/H and N/O ratios and are thought to be descendants of stars with initial masses of ~3-8Msun. These characteristics indicate that the progenitor stars experienced proton-capture nucleosynthesis at…
Type I planetary nebulae (PNe) are defined as those with high He and N abundances (Peimbert & Torres-Peimbert 1983). These objects present in general bipolar geometries and have high stellar temperatures (Corradi & Schwarz 1995,…
While the chemical abudances observed in bright planetary nebulae in local spiral galaxies are less varied than their counterparts in dwarfs, they provide new insight. Their helium abundances are typically enriched by less than 50\%…
The existence of faint blue stars far above the galactic plane, which have spectra that are similar to nearby Population I B stars, present several interesting questions. Among them are: Can a Population I B star travel from the disk to a…
We numerically investigate abundance properties of the Galactic globular clusters (GCs) by adopting a new ``external pollution'' scenario. In this framework, GCs are assumed to originate in forming low-mass dwarfs embedded in dark matter…
Big Bang nucleosynthesis in the presence of decaying relic neutral particles is examined in detail. All non-thermal processes important for the determination of light-element abundance yields of 2H, 3H, 3He, 4He, 6Li, and 7Li are coupled to…
We take a fresh look at the limits on the number of neutrino flavors derived from big bang nucleosynthesis. In particular, recent measurements of the \he4 abundance enable one to estimate the primordial \he4 mass fraction at $Y_p = 0.232…
The diverse isotopic and elemental signatures produced in different nucleosynthetic sites are passed on to successive generations of stars. By tracing these chemical signatures back through the stellar populations of the Galaxy, it is…
We present a new analysis of the abundances observed in extremely metal poor stars based on both a new generation of theoretical presupernova models and explosions of zero metallicity massive stars and a new abundance analysis of an…
We calculate evolution and nucleosynthesis in massive Pop III stars with M = 13 ~ 270Msun, and compare the results with abundances of very metal-poor halo stars. The observed abundances can be explained by the energetic core-collapse…
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) relates key cosmological parameters to the primordial abundance of light elements. In this paper, we point out that the recent observations of Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies by the Planck satellite…
We update the constraints on the fraction of the Universe that may have gone into primordial black holes (PBHs) over the mass range $10^{-5}\text{--}10^{50}$ g. Those smaller than $\sim 10^{15}$ g would have evaporated by now due to Hawking…
In recent years, the usefulness of astrophysical objects as Dark Matter (DM) probes has become more and more evident, especially in view of null results from direct detection and particle production experiments. The potentially observable…
The apparent discrepancy between abundances of light nuclides predicted by the standard Big-Bang and observational data is explained, by assuming the presence of metastable H dibaryons at the nucleosynthesis era. These dibaryons could be…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
Evidence from the WMAP polarization data indicates that the Universe may have been reionized at very high redshift. It is often suggested that the ionizing UV flux originates from an early population of massive or very massive stars.…