Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints and Light Element Abundance Estimates

Abstract

To elucidate the significance of the effect of systematic uncertainties in light element abundance estimates on cosmological bounds derivable from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) we present tables giving bounds on ${\Omega }_{baryon}$ and $N_{\nu }$ as one changes the limits on primordial \he and ${}^7$Li. This allows us to derive new relations between these estimates and constraints on ${\Omega }_{baryon}$ and $N_{\nu }$. For example, only if the helium mass fraction, $Y_p\ge .245$ does ${}^7$Li (or D) presently play a role in placing an upper limit on the baryon density, and only if $Y_p\ge .250$ does ${}^4$He cease to play a role in bounding $\etaten$. All the elements combine together tend to give a stringent upper bound of $0.16$ on ${\Omega }_{baryon}$. We also find that $Y_p$ must exceed .239 for consistency between theory and observation if D+${}^3$He/H is less than $10^{-4}$. Updated nuclear reaction rates, an updated neutron half life, Monte Carlo techniques, and correlations between the predicted abundances are incorporated in our analysis. We also discuss the handling of systematic uncertainties in the context of statistical analyses of BBN predictions.

latex, 17 pages plus 1 fig (appended as separate uuencoded file) (UPDATED A FINAL TIME TO INCLUDE NEW DERIVED LIMIT ON HE AND ADDITIONAL REFERENCES)

References in corpus (2)

• Refined Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on ${\Omega }_{Baryon}$ and $N_{\nu }$
• Recent Deuterium Observations and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: A New Paradigm?

Cited by in corpus (38)

• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: 2015
• Big Bang nucleosynthesis and physics beyond the Standard Model
• Electroweak Baryogenesis
• The Deuterium Abundance Towards Q1937-1009
• The Cosmological Constant is Back
• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis After Planck
• The Deuterium Abundance Towards Q1009+2956
• Big-bang Nucleosynthesis Enters the Precision Era
• The Cosmological Baryon Density from the Deuterium Abundance at a redshift z = 3.57
• Primordial Nucleosynthesis for the New Cosmology: Determining Uncertainties and Examining Concordance
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis in Crisis?
• A Lower Limit on the Age of the Universe
• From Microwave Anisotropies to Cosmology
• Assessing Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Big bang nucleosynthesis limit on N_nu
• Big Bang nucleosynthesis and tensor-scalar gravity
• Quantifying uncertainties in primordial nucleosynthesis without Monte Carlo simulations
• The Impact of New d(p,γ)He3 Rates on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Primordial Magnetic Fields
• Model Independent Predictions of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis from \he4 and \li7: Consistency and Implications
• The End of the Age Problem, And The Case For A Cosmological Constant Revisited
• Updated constraint on a primordial magnetic field during big bang nucleosynthesis and a formulation of field effects
• No Crisis for Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Model-Independent Predictions of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Cosmological Nucleosynthesis and Active-Sterile Neutrino Oscillations with Small Mass Differences: The Nonresonant Case
• A New WIMP Population in the Solar System and New Signals for Dark-Matter Detectors
• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Galactic Chemical Evolution
• Generalized Limits to the Number of Light Particle Degrees of Freedom from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• A Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Likelihood Analysis of the Baryon-to-Photon Ratio and the Number of Light Particle Degrees of Freedom
• Effects of power law primordial magnetic field on big bang nucleosynthesis
• Old Galaxies at High Redshift and the Cosmological Constant
• The Effect of Bound Dineutrons upon BBN
• Nucleosynthesis Limits on the Mass of Long Lived Tau and Muon Neutrinos
• The Uncertainty in Newton's Constant and Precision Predictions of the Primordial Helium Abundance
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• A Warm-Plus-Hot Dark Matter Universe