Deuterium abundance in the most metal-poor damped Lyman alpha system: converging on Ωb,0h2

By M. Pettini, B. Zych, M. Murphy, A. Lewis, C. Steidel. 2008

153 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The most metal-poor damped Lyα system known to date, at zabs= 2.61843 in the spectrum of the QSO Q0913+072, with an oxygen abundance of only ∼1/250 of the solar value, shows six well-resolved DI Lyman series transitions in high-quality echelle spectra recently obtained with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) VLT. We deduce a value of the deuterium abundance log (D/H) =−4.56 ± 0.04 which is in good agreement with four out of the six most reliable previous determinations of this ratio in QSO absorbers. We find plausible reasons why in the other two cases the 1σ errors may have been underestimated by about a factor of two. The addition of this latest data point does not significantly change the mean value of the primordial abundance of deuterium, suggesting that we are now converging to a reliable measure of this quantity. We conclude that〈log (D/H)p〉=−4.55 ± 0.03 and Ωb,0h2(BBN) = 0.0213 ± 0.0010 (68 per cent confidence limits). Including the latter as a prior in the analysis of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) five-year data leads to a revised best-fitting value of the power-law index of primordial fluctuations ns= 0.956 ± 0.013 (1σ) and ns < 0.990 with 99 per cent confidence. Considering together the constraints provided by WMAP 5, (D/H)p, baryon oscillations in the galaxy distribution, and distances to Type Ia supernovae, we arrive at the current best estimates Ωb,0h2= 0.0224 ± 0.0005 and ns= 0.959 ± 0.013.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e18c9422935f7449dd26179ecbf768e163d45ce

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. C. Steidel
2. M. Pettini
3. Y. Izotov
4. T. Thuan
5. A. Shapley
6. Naveen A. Reddy
7. D. Erb
8. D. Spiegel

Citations in the corpus

• THE PRIMORDIAL ABUNDANCE OF 4He: EVIDENCE FOR NON-STANDARD BIG BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIS (2010, methodology): “The D/H measurements in damped Lyα systems appear to converge to a mean primordial value log D/H = −4.56 ± 0.04, corresponding to a baryon mass fraction Ωbh 2 = 0.0213 ± 0.001 (Pettini et al. 2008).”
• THE DEUTERIUM-BURNING MASS LIMIT FOR BROWN DWARFS AND GIANT PLANETS (2010, background): “Initial Deuterium Fraction Big-bang nucleosynthesis calculations, in conjunction with other observations (CMB, high-z 4 quasars, etc.) suggest that the primordial D:H ratio is (2.8±0.2)×10−5 (Pettini et al. 2008).”
• A new, precise measurement of the primordial abundance of deuterium (2012, background): “…background radiation (CMB), light element abundances can improve constraints on cosmological parameters, primarily the spectral index of primordial fluctuations (Pettini et al. 2008), and on the effective number of light fermion species, Neff (e.g. Simha & Steigman 2008; Nollett & Holder 2011).”
• A new approach to systematic uncertainties and self-consistency in helium abundance determinations (2010, unknown): “Using the 5-year WMAP value of ΩBh 2 = 0.02273± 0.00062 or η = (6.23± 0.17)× 10−10 (Komatsu et al. 2009), one expects D/H = (2.49 ± 0.17) × 10−5 (Cyburt et al. 2008) which should be compared with (2.82 ± 0.21) × 10−5 (Kirkman et al. 2003; Pettini et al. 2008, and references therein).”
• FIVE-YEAR WILKINSON MICROWAVE ANISOTROPY PROBE OBSERVATIONS: COSMOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION (2008, unknown): “D1 we show the two-dimensional joint constraint on w0 and w ′ from WMAP+BAO+SN+BBN (see also § 5.4.2) with the systematic errors included.”
• One Percent Determination of the Primordial Deuterium Abundance (2017, background): “…have been made (Burles & Tytler 1998a,b; Pettini & Bowen 2001; O’Meara et al. 2001; Kirkman et al. 2003; Crighton et al. 2004; O’Meara et al. 2006; Pettini et al. 2008; Fumagalli, O’Meara, & Prochaska 2011; Pettini & Cooke 2012; Noterdaeme et al. 2012; Cooke et al. 2014; Riemer-Sørensen et al.…”
• The Pisa pre-main sequence tracks and isochrones - A database covering a wide range of Z, Y, mass, and age values (2011, methodology): “A similar Dabundance was found by Pettini et al. (2008) and Steigman et al. 8 By (D/H) we mean the ratio of the numerical abundances of deuterium to hydrogen.”
• STANDARD BIG BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIS UP TO CNO WITH AN IMPROVED EXTENDED NUCLEAR NETWORK (2011, background): “Very few observations of these cosmological clouds are available (Pettini et al. 2008, and references therein) and the adopted primordial D abundance is given by the average value, D/H = (2.82+0.20−0.19 ) × 10−5.”