Big Bang Nucleosynthesis as a Probe of New Physics

By M. Pospelov, J. Pradler. 2010

222 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), an epoch of primordial nuclear transformations in the expanding universe, has left an observable imprint in the abundances of light elements. Precision observations of such abundances, combined with high-accuracy predictions, provide a nontrivial test of the hot big bang and probe nonstandard cosmological and particle physics scenarios. We give an overview of BBN sensitivity to different classes of new physics: new particle or field degrees of freedom, time-varying couplings, decaying or annihilating massive particles leading to nonthermal processes, and catalysis of BBN by charged relics.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/876e58966002b6265147c02d7398373ffc2c4576

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. J. Redondo
2. Miguel Escudero
3. M. Fairbairn
4. J.B.G. Alvey
5. N. Sabti
6. D. Blas
7. P. Serpico
8. Davide Cadamuro

In Atmospheric Science

1. J. Redondo
2. M. Fairbairn
3. Miguel Escudero

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. Miguel Escudero
2. J. Redondo
3. P. Serpico
4. G. Mangano
5. Miguel Escudero Abenza
6. M. Fairbairn
7. J.B.G. Alvey
8. N. Sabti

Citations in the corpus

• A robust upper limit on Neff from BBN, circa 2011 (2011, background): “In the last two decades, BBN has thus mostly turned into a probe of physics/cosmology beyond the standard model (see [4, 5] for recent reviews).”
• Phases of new physics in the CMB (2015, unknown): “[1–4] for reviews).”
• Neutrino decoupling beyond the Standard Model: CMB constraints on the Dark Matter mass with a fast and precise Neff evaluation (2018, background): “The presence of such particles will affect BBN mainly because [16–18, 29] i) the proton-to-neutron conversion rates are modified by a change in the neutrino-photon temperature evolution, and ii) the early Universe expansion is modified, in particular the time at which Deuterium starts to form will b”
• Refined bounds on MeV-scale thermal dark sectors from BBN and the CMB (2019, methodology): “Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) has been widely used as a probe of new physics [90–92].”
• Cosmological bounds on pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons (2011, background): “The decays of relic particles can have a considerable effect on the abundances of light elements predicted by big bang nucleosynthesis (see [33–35]).”