Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
arXiv:astro-ph/9602029 · doi:10.1016/0920-5632(96)00303-9
Abstract
In the first thousand seconds of its evolution the Universe was a primordial nuclear reactor synthesizing the nuclides D, He, He and Li. These messengers from the Big Bang provide a unique window on the early, hot, dense Universe, offering the opportunity for tests of the standard models of particle physics and of cosmology. A new, statistically coherent comparison of the primordial abundances of these nuclides inferred from increasingly accurate observational data with those predicted by the standard model hints at a possible crisis. The case for this emerging crisis is presented and several paths towards ameliorating it are explored.
13 pages, including 4 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the Workshop on ``Theoretical and Phenomenological Aspects of Underground Physics" (TAUP'95), Suppl. Nucl. Phys. B (M. Fatas, ed.)