Bound-State Effects on Light-Element Abundances in Gravitino Dark Matter Scenarios

Abstract

If the gravitino is the lightest supersymmetric particle and the long-lived next-to-lightest sparticle (NSP) is the stau, the charged partner of the tau lepton, it may be metastable and form bound states with several nuclei. These bound states may affect the cosmological abundances of Li6 and Li7 by enhancing nuclear rates that would otherwise be strongly suppressed. We consider the effects of these enhanced rates on the final abundances produced in Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), including injections of both electromagnetic and hadronic energy during and after BBN. We calculate the dominant two- and three-body decays of both neutralino and stau NSPs, and model the electromagnetic and hadronic decay products using the PYTHIA event generator and a cascade equation. Generically, the introduction of bound states drives light element abundances further from their observed values; however, for small regions of parameter space bound state effects can bring lithium abundances in particular in better accord with observations. We show that in regions where the stau is the NSP with a lifetime longer than 10^3-10^4 s, the abundances of Li6 and Li7 are far in excess of those allowed by observations. For shorter lifetimes of order 1000 s, we comment on the possibility in minimal supersymmetric and supergravity models that stau decays could reduce the Li7 abundance from standard BBN values while at the same time enhancing the Li6 abundance.

22 pages 6 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Hadronically and Electromagnetically Decaying Relic Neutral Particles
• Particle physics catalysis of thermal Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with Long Lived Charged Massive Particles
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with Bound States of Long-lived Charged Particles
• Population III Generated Cosmic Rays and the Production of Li6

Cited by in corpus (67)

• Primordial Nucleosynthesis: from precision cosmology to fundamental physics
• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Gravitino
• The Primordial Lithium Problem
• Dark matter production in the early Universe: beyond the thermal WIMP paradigm
• A Bitter Pill: The Primordial Lithium Problem Worsens
• Thermal production of gravitinos
• Constraints on the Reheating Temperature in Gravitino Dark Matter Scenarios
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis as a Probe of New Physics
• Dark Matter Candidates: A Ten-Point Test
• Coupled Variations of Fundamental Couplings and Primordial Nucleosynthesis
• Dark Matter Candidates - Axions, Neutralinos, Gravitinos, and Axinos
• Bounds on long-lived charged massive particles from Big Bang nucleosynthesis
• On the Feasibility of a Stop NLSP in Gravitino Dark Matter Scenarios
• Sweet Spot Supersymmetry
• The cosmic 6Li and 7Li problems and BBN with long-lived charged massive particles
• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis with Long-Lived Charged Slepton
• Primordial Lithium Abundance in Catalyzed Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Lithium abundances of halo dwarfs based on excitation temperature. I. LTE
• Possible solution to the ${}^7$Li problem by the long lived stau
• Resonant Destruction as a Possible Solution to the Cosmological Lithium Problem
• Implications of Catalyzed BBN in the CMSSM with Gravitino Dark Matter
• The number density of a charged relic
• New Nuclear Physics for Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• A Simultaneous Solution to the ^6Li and ^7Li Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Problems from a Long-Lived Negatively-Charged Leptonic Particle
• Gravitino Dark Matter and the Cosmic Lithium Abundances
• Solving the cosmic lithium problems with primordial late-decaying particles
• Metastable GeV-scale particles as a solution to the cosmological lithium problem
• Frequentist Analysis of the Parameter Space of Minimal Supergravity
• Radiative gravitino decays from R-parity violation
• Collider signatures of gravitino dark matter with a sneutrino NLSP
• Measuring lifetimes of long-lived charged massive particles stopped in LHC detectors
• Sneutrino NLSP Scenarios in the NUHM with Gravitino Dark Matter
• Gravitino Dark Matter from Inflaton Decay
• Revised Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with long-lived negatively charged massive particles: updated recombination rates, primordial 9Be nucleosynthesis, and impact of new 6Li limits
• Introduction to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and Modern Cosmology
• New Constraints on Radiative Decay of Long-Lived Particles in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with New ${}^4$He Photodisintegration Data
• Cosmological solutions to the Lithium problem: Big-bang nucleosynthesis with photon cooling, $X$-particle decay and a primordial magnetic field
• Probing the Reheating Temperature at Colliders and with Primordial Nucleosynthesis
• Entropy production by Q-ball decay for diluting long-lived charged particles
• Against Tachyophobia
• The Gravitino-Stau Scenario after Catalyzed BBN
• Probing new physics with long-lived charged particles produced by atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos
• Destruction of 7Be in big bang nucleosynthesis via long-lived sub-strongly interacting massive particles as a solution to the Li problem
• Cosmic Ray production of Beryllium and Boron at high redshift
• Long-lived Staus from Cosmic Rays
• Stop on Top: SUSY Parameter Regions, Fine-Tuning Constraints
• Review on Effects of Long-lived Negatively Charged Massive Particles on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Solution to Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis in Hybrid Axion Dark Matter Model
• A Heavy Higgs and a Light Sneutrino NLSP in the MSSM with Enhanced SU(2) D-terms
• Extremely Long-Lived Charged Massive Particles as A Probe for Reheating of the Universe
• Upper Limits on the Peccei-Quinn Scale and on the Reheating Temperature in Axino Dark Matter Scenarios
• Spontaneous Non-thermal Leptogenesis in High-scale Inflation Models
• Gravitino dark matter from increased thermal relic particles
• Determining Spins of Metastable Sleptons at the Large Hadron Collider
• Flaxino dark matter and stau decay
• CBBN in the CMSSM
• Nuclear weak interaction rates in primordial nucleosynthesis
• Cosmological Cosmic Rays: Sharpening the Primordial Lithium Problem
• Gravitino dark matter and the lithium primordial abundance within a pre-BBN modified expansion
• Discovering SUSY with $m_0^2<0$ in the First LHC Physics Run
• Dynamical Matter-Parity Breaking and Gravitino Dark Matter
• The long-lived stau as a thermal relic
• Beyond the Standard Model at the LHC and Beyond
• Prospects for Discovering Supersymmetry at the LHC
• A gauge mediation scenario with hidden sector renormalization in MSSM
• Colliders and Cosmology
• Gravitino Dark Matter and Light Element Adundances