Related papers: BBN and the Primordial Abundances
We revisit the upper limits on the abundance of unstable massive relic particles provided by the success of Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis calculations. We use the cosmic microwave background data to constrain the baryon-to-photon ratio, and…
Within the context of hot big-bang cosmology, a cosmic background of presently low energy neutrinos is predicted to exist in concert with the photons of the cosmic background radiation. The number density of the cosmological neutrinos is of…
The fragile light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron are easily destroyed in stellar interiors, and are thus superb probes of physical processes occuring in the outer stellar layers. The light elements are also excellent tracers of the…
We propose a novel cosmological scenario in which baryonic neutron stars could plausibly form in the early universe. If baryogenesis initially produces an excessively-large baryon asymmetry, $Y_B \gg 10^{-10},$ the baryonic mass inside the…
Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are strongly motivated by theory due to their capability of simultaneously explaining the observed phenomena of dark matter, neutrino oscillations and the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. The existence of such…
Nucleosynthesis in the standard hot big bang cosmology offers a successful account of the production of the light nuclides during the early evolution of the Universe. Consistency among the predicted and observed abundances of D, $^3$He,…
Primordial nucleosynthesis is rightly hailed as one of the great successes of the standard cosmological model. Here we consider the initial forging of elements in the recently proposed Rh = ct universe, a cosmology that demands linear…
The physical ingredients to describe the epoch of cosmological recombination are amazingly simple and well-understood. This fact allows us to take into account a very large variety of processes, still finding potentially measurable…
In the standard hot big bang model, the expansion of the early universe is given by the Friedmann equation with an energy density dominated by relativistic particles. Since in a variety of models this equation is altered, we introduce…
We show how knowledge of the cold dark matter (CDM) density can be used, in conjunction with measurements of the parameters of a scenario for beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics, to provide information about the evolution of the…
A new observation of D in a primordial gas cloud, made using the high resolution spectrograph at the Keck telescope, indicates an abundance $ D/H =(1.9-2.5) \times 10^{-4}$ \cite{SCHR}. Since deuterium is destroyed by stars, and the…
The importance of the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) as a unique tool for studying neutrino properties is discussed, and the recent steps towards a self-consistent and robust handling of the weak reaction decoupling from the thermal bath as…
Theoretical investigations into the evolution of the early universe are an essential part of particle physics that allow us to identify viable extensions to the Standard Model as well as motivated parameter space that can be probed by…
Within the precise cosmological framework provided by the Lambda-Cold Dark Matter model and standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the chemical evolution of the pregalactic gas can now be followed with accuracy limited only by the uncertainties…
Scalar dark matter can interact with Standard Model (SM) particles, altering the fundamental constants of Nature in the process. Changes in the fundamental constants during and prior to Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) produce changes in the…
New data from WMAP have appeared, related to both the fractional energy density in relativistic species at decoupling and also the primordial helium abundance, at the same time as other independent observational estimates suggest a higher…
In the primordial Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), only the lightest nuclides (D, $^3$He, $^4$He, and $^7$Li) were synthesized in appreciable quantities, and these relics provide us a unique window on the early universe. Currently, BBN…
The high densities in the early Universe provide a unique laboratory to constrain couplings between feebly interacting particles, such as dark matter and neutrinos. In this article, we study how Big Bang Nucleosynthesis can constrain models…
In conventional general relativity, the expansion rate H of a Robertson-Walker universe is related to the energy density by the Friedmann equation. Aside from the present day, the only epoch at which we can constrain the expansion history…
The recently observed Deuterium abundance in a low- metallicity high-redshift hydrogen cloud, which is about ten times larger than that observed in the near interstellar medium, is that expected from the Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis…