Did something decay, evaporate, or annihilate during big bang nucleosynthesis?

Did Something Decay, Evaporate, or Annihilate during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis?

Results of a detailed examination of the cascade nucleosynthesis resulting from the putative hadronic decay, evaporation, or annihilation of a primordial relic during the Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) era are presented. It is found that injection of energetic nucleons around cosmic time 10sec may lead to an observationally favored reduction of the primordial Li/H yield by a factor 2 − 3. Moreo...

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: Consistency or Crisis?

The early hot, dense, expanding Universe was a primordial reactor in which the light nuclides D, He, He and Li were synthesized in astrophysically interesting abundances. The challenge to the standard hot big bang model (Big Bang Nucleosynthesis ≡ BBN) is the comparison between the observed and predicted abundances, the latter which depend only on the universal abundance of nucleons. The curren...

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: Reprise

Recent observational and theoretical developments concerning the primordial synthesis of the light elements are reviewed, and the implications for dark matter mentioned.

Assessing Big-Bang nucleosynthesis.

Systematic uncertainties in the light-element abundances and their evolution make a rigorous statistical assessment difficult. However, using Bayesian methods we show that the following statement is robust: the predicted and measured abundances are consistent with 95% credibility only if the baryon-to-photon ratio is between 2× 10 and 6.5× 10 and the number of light neutrino species is less tha...