Cosmological Deuterium Production in Non-Standard Scenarios

Abstract

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 particular, the production of deuterium in non-standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis scenarios, the putative production of deuterium in astrophysical environments, and the possible destruction of deuterium via non-standard chemical evolution are discussed.

11 pages, article based on a talk presented at "Deuterium in the Universe", Meudon, June 2001, to be published in Planetary and Space Science

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• The cosmological baryon density from the deuterium to hydrogen ratio towards QSO absorption systems: D/H towards Q1243+3047
• Present status of primordial nucleosynthesis after WMAP: results from a new BBN code
• Introducing the Dirac-Milne universe
• Gamma-ray bursts as cosmological probes: LambdaCDM vs. conformal gravity
• The Deuterium Abundance in the z=0.7 absorber towards QSO PG1718+4807
• AEther as an Inevitable Consequence of Quantum Gravity