Coupled Variations of Fundamental Couplings and Primordial Nucleosynthesis

Abstract

The effect of variations of the fundamental nuclear parameters on big-bang nucleosynthesis are modeled and discussed in detail taking into account the interrelations between the fundamental parameters arising in unified theories. Considering only \he4, strong constraints on the variation of the neutron lifetime, neutron-proton mass difference are set. These constraints are then translated into constraints on the time variation of the Yukawa couplings and the fine structure constant. Furthermore, we show that a variation of the deuterium binding energy is able to reconcile the \li7 abundance deduced from the WMAP analysis with its spectroscopically determined value while maintaining concordance with D and \he4. The analysis is strongly based on the potential model of Flambaum and Shuryak that relates the binding energy of the deuteron with the nucleon and $\sigma$ and $\omega$ mesons masses, however, we show that an alternative approach that consists of a pion mass dependence necessarily leads to equivalent conclusions.

12 pages, 6 figures. Revised sensitivity of B_D with the fundamental parameters. Added section on the sensitivity of B_D with the pion mass. Conclusions unchanged

References in corpus (1)

• Extraction of the pion-nucleon sigma-term from the spectrum of exotic baryons

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Primordial Nucleosynthesis: from precision cosmology to fundamental physics
• Environmental Dependence of Masses and Coupling Constants
• A Bitter Pill: The Primordial Lithium Problem Worsens
• Dependence of nuclear binding on hadronic mass variation
• Primordial nucleosynthesis as a probe of fundamental physics parameters
• Lithium abundances of halo dwarfs based on excitation temperature. I. LTE
• Bounds on the fine structure constant variability from FeII absorption lines in QSO spectra
• Early Universe Constraints on Time Variation of Fundamental Constants
• Unifying cosmological and recent time variations of fundamental couplings
• On the cosmological evolution of alpha and mu and the dynamics of dark energy
• Time variation of the fine structure constant in the early universe and the Bekenstein model
• The Primordial Helium Abundance
• Progress Towards A Permanent Octupole Magnetic Ultra-Cold Neutron Trap for Lifetime Measurements