Primordial nucleosynthesis and late-decaying particles: A new model of nucleosynthesis

Thesis/Dissertation · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1988

OSTI ID:5254071

Starkman, G D

This thesis deals with the effects of late decaying (10{sup 4}s {le} {tau} {le} 10{sup 5}s), massive (M {approx gt} 5GeV) particles on the primordial synthesis of the light elements. We first analyze the effects of such particles on light element abundances; we show that whereas radiative decays can lead to photo-dissociation, hadronic decays can cause significant light element production. It emerges that, for a wide range of particle parameters, production and destruction balance in such a way as to lead to light element abundances in agreement with current observations. The final abundances are independent of the results of any earlier epoch of nucleosynthesis, so long as in some such era sufficient helium-4 was produced. This relaxes the bound on the cosmic baryon number density imposed by Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (SBBN), and in particular allows for the possibility that the universe is closed entirely by baryons. We indicate several observational predictions which can be used to differentiate between this new model of nucleosynthesis and SBBN.

• Research Organization: Stanford Univ., CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5254071
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400101 -- Activation
Nuclear Reaction
Radiometric & Radiochemical Procedures
640100* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology
640106 -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Cosmology
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BARYONS
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
DECAY
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
ENERGY RANGE
FERMIONS
FLUIDS
GASES
GEV RANGE
GEV RANGE 01-10
HADRONIC PARTICLE DECAY
HADRONS
HELIUM
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NONMETALS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
PARTICLE DECAY
RARE GASES
SYNTHESIS