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Title: Neutrino energy transport in weak decoupling and big bang nucleosynthesis

Journal Article · · Physical Review D
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States); Univ. of San Diego, San Diego, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States); North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)

In this study, we calculate the evolution of the early universe through the epochs of weak decoupling, weak freeze-out and big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) by simultaneously coupling a full strong, electromagnetic, and weak nuclear reaction network with a multienergy group Boltzmann neutrino energy transport scheme. The modular structure of our code provides the ability to dissect the relative contributions of each process responsible for evolving the dynamics of the early universe in the absence of neutrino flavor oscillations. Such an approach allows a detailed accounting of the evolution of the νe, ν¯e, νμ, ν¯μ, ντ, ν¯τ energy distribution functions alongside and self-consistently with the nuclear reactions and entropy/heat generation and flow between the neutrino and photon/electron/positron/baryon plasma components. This calculation reveals nonlinear feedback in the time evolution of neutrino distribution functions and plasma thermodynamic conditions (e.g., electron-positron pair densities), with implications for the phasing between scale factor and plasma temperature; the neutron-to-proton ratio; light-element abundance histories; and the cosmological parameter Neff. We find that our approach of following the time development of neutrino spectral distortions and concomitant entropy production and extraction from the plasma results in changes in the computed value of the BBN deuterium yield. For example, for particular implementations of quantum corrections in plasma thermodynamics, our calculations show a 0.4% increase in deuterium. These changes are potentially significant in the context of anticipated improvements in observational and nuclear physics uncertainties.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; 257842
OSTI ID:
1291294
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1249651
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-29163
Journal Information:
Physical Review D, Vol. 93, Issue 8; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 70 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (16)

Relic neutrino decoupling with flavour oscillations revisited journal July 2016
A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter journal January 2017
Updated bounds on sum of neutrino masses in various cosmological scenarios journal September 2018
Neutrino decoupling beyond the Standard Model: CMB constraints on the Dark Matter mass with a fast and precise N eff evaluation journal February 2019
Constraining light sterile neutrino mass with the BICEP2/Keck array 2014 B-mode polarization data journal July 2019
One Percent Determination of the Primordial Deuterium Abundance journal March 2018
Relic neutrino decoupling with flavour oscillations revisited text January 2016
A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter text January 2017
A White Paper on keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter text January 2016
Neutrino Quantum Kinetic Equations: The Collision Term text January 2016
The primordial deuterium abundance of the most metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha system text January 2016
Lepton asymmetry, neutrino spectral distortions, and big bang nucleosynthesis text January 2016
One percent determination of the primordial deuterium abundance text January 2017
Updated Bounds on Sum of Neutrino Masses in Various Cosmological Scenarios text January 2018
Constraining light sterile neutrino mass with the BICEP2/Keck Array 2014 B-mode polarization data text January 2018
Neutrino decoupling beyond the Standard Model: CMB constraints on the Dark Matter mass with a fast and precise $N_{\rm eff}$ evaluation text January 2018