Related papers: Is Deuterium in High Redshift Lyman Limit Systems …
Spectra of quasars at high redshift with high resolution and high signal-to-noise allow in favorable circumstances detection of absorption by deuterium and ultimately measurement of its primordial abundance. Ultraviolet spectra of high…
We report a reanalysis of a near-pristine absorption system, located at a redshift z_abs=2.52564 toward the quasar Q1243+307, based on the combination of archival and new data obtained with the HIRES echelle spectrograph on the Keck…
Deuterium plays a crucial role in cosmology because the primordial D/H abundance, in the context of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) theory, yields a precise measure of the cosmic baryon content. Observations of D/H can limit or measure the…
Recent confrontations of the predictions of standard big bang nucleosynthesis (SBBN) with the primordial abundances of the light nuclides inferred from observational data reveal a conflict. Simply put, compared to theoretical expectations…
Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis at the baryon density determined by the microwave anisotropy spectrum predicts an excess of \li7 compared to observations by a factor of 4-5. In contrast, BBN predictions for D/H are somewhat below (but…
(Abridged) Estimates of the interstellar deuterium abundance span a wide range of values. Here we study the evolution of deuterium in the framework of successful models for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way able to reproduce the…
Observational constraints on the primordial deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio (D/H) can test theories of the early universe and provide constraints on models of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). We measure deuterium absorption in high-redshift,…
The deuterium abundances inferred from observations of the interstellar medium within 1-2 kpc of the Sun range over a factor of three and the corresponding oxygen abundances show an even larger dispersion. While the lower D (and O)…
Clouds of high infrared extinction are promising sites of massive star/cluster formation. A large number of cloud cores discovered in recent years allows investigation of possible evolutionary sequence among cores in early phases. We have…
We present results from 12 km/s resolution echelle spectroscopy of the bright $z=4.694$ QSO BR1202-0725. A preliminary analysis shows that high metallicity narrow line absorption clouds are present up to the redshift of the quasar. A damped…
Observations of clusters and super clusters of galaxies have indicated that the Universe is more dominated by baryons than ever estimated in the homogeneous cosmological model for primordial nucleosynthesis. Recent detections of possibly…
The primordial deuterium abundance is an important tracer of the fundamental physics taking place during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. It can be determined from absorption features along the line of sight to distant quasars. The quasar…
The metal-poor damped Lyman alpha (DLA) system at z = 3.04984 in the QSO SDSSJ1419+0829 has near-ideal properties for an accurate determination of the primordial abundance of deuterium, (D/H)_p. We have analysed a high-quality spectrum of…
Primordial abundances of light elements are sensitive to the physics of the early Universe and can directly constrain cosmological quantities, such as the baryon-to-photon ratio $\eta_{10}$, the baryon density and the number of neutrino…
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 z ~ 0.701 absorption system towards the QSO PG1718+4807 is the only example of a QSO absorption system which might have a deuterium/hydrogen ratio approximately ten times the value found towards other QSOs. We have obtained new STIS…
We review and update some aspects of deuterium chemistry in the post-recombination Universe with particular emphasis on the formation and destruction of HD. We examine in detail the available theoretical and experimental data for the…
It is widely believed that the cosmic baryon density may be obtained by inferring deuterium abundances in low-metallicity quasar absorption line systems. The implicit assumptions which enter this argument are critically assessed. In…
We examine the processes of formation and destruction of LiH molecules in the primordial gas at temperatures T \leq 5000 K in the framework of standard Friedmann cosmological models and we compute the optical depth of the Universe due to…
We present our measurements of the deuterium to hydrogen ratio (D/H) in QSO absorption systems, which give D/H = 3.40 $\pm 0.25 \times 10^{-5}$ based on analysis of four independent systems. We discuss the properties of two systems which…