The Primordial Lithium Problem

By B. Fields. 2011

359 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) theory, together with the precise WMAP cosmic baryon density, makes tight predictions for the abundances of the lightest elements. Deuterium and 4He measurements agree well with expectations, but 7Li observations lie below the BBN+WMAP prediction by a factor of three to four. This 4–5-σ mismatch constitutes the so-called cosmic lithium problem; disparate solutions are possible. First, astrophysical systematics in the observations could exist but are increasingly constrained. Second, nuclear physics experiments provide a wealth of well-measured cross-section data, but 7Be destruction could be enhanced by unknown or poorly measured resonances. Third, physics beyond the Standard Model could alter the 7Li abundance, although deuterium and 4He must remain unperturbed. In this review, we discuss such scenarios, highlighting decaying supersymmetric particles and time-varying fundamental constants. Present and planned experiments could reveal which (if any) of these proposed solutio...

Subfields: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0e78463549450555f85a4c994795681979e9c8d8

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In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

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4. Fa-yin Wang
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Citations in the corpus

• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis after Planck (2019, background): “3) is far below the CMB+BBN prediction; this is the well-known ‘lithium problem’ [44, 124].”
• Dark radiation constraints on minicharged particles in models with a hidden photon (2013, background): “We do not consider lithium in this study since already in standard BBN the amount of 7Li differs from the SM prediction by more than 4σ [114, 115].”
• Precision big bang nucleosynthesis with improved Helium-4 predictions (2018, background): “Leaving aside, the “lithium problem” that has not yet found a fully satisfactory solution (Fields, 2011), it has become essential to improve the precision on deuterium and 4He primordial abundances (3He is not pertinent here).”
• The Phenomenology of Right Handed Neutrinos (2013, background): “[3] for a review), the annual modulation in the DAMA data [4], the excess of positrons in the cosmic radiation [5, 6], the ”forward-backward asymmetry” observed at the Tevatron [7], the disputed evidence for neutrinoless double β-decay claimed by the Heidelberg-Moscow experiment [8], the cosmologica”
• Hubble Tension: The Evidence of New Physics (2023, background): “5-3σ), parity violating rotation of CMB linear polarization [67–70], small-scale curiosities [71–74], age of the universe [75], the Lithium problem [76] (2-4σ),the quasar Hubble diagram [77–81] (∼4σ), oscillating signals in short range gravity experiments [82,83], anomalously low baryon temperature ”