Spectrum of QCD nucleation-site separations and primordial nucleosynthesis

Journal Article · Fri Feb 15 04:00:00 EST 1991 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.43.1079· OSTI ID:5835031

Meyer, B S; Alcock, C R; Mathews, G J ^[1]; Fuller, G M ^[2]

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1. Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550 (USA)
2. Physics Department, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093 (USA)

The spectrum of nucleation-site separations in the cosmic QCD phase transition is calculated within the framework of homogeneous nucleation theory. This spectrum has the property that the ratio of the standard deviation of the separations to the mean separation has the constant value of 0.466, independent of any QCD physics parameters. When the assumption is made that a duality exists between nucleation sites and baryon fluctuation sites, the same spectrum may be applied to baryon-number fluctuation separations. When nucleosynthesis results are averaged over this spectrum, the upper limit on {Omega}{sub {ital b}}(2.735{ital K}/{ital T}{sub 0}){sup 3}{times}({ital H}{sub 0}/50 km s{sup {minus}1}Mpc{sup {minus}1}){sup 2}, as derived from the observed upper limit to the primordial {sup 4}He abundance, drops from 0.8 to 0.56 in baryon inhomogeneous universes. In order for macroscopic baryon inhomogeneities to arise in the early Universe, persist to the era of nucleosynthesis, and give nucleosynthesis yields which allow {Omega}{sub {ital b}} to be greater than the limit from standard big-bang nucleosynthesis, the QCD surface tension must be near its upper limit of around the cube of the coexistence temperature.

• OSTI ID: 5835031
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA), Journal Name: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA) Vol. 43:4; ISSN PRVDA; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ABUNDANCE
BARYON NUMBER
BARYONS
COSMOLOGY
DUALITY
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
FERMIONS
FIELD THEORIES
HADRONS
HELIUM 4
HELIUM ISOTOPES
HUBBLE EFFECT
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
MATTER
NUCLEI
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUARK MATTER
SPECTRA
STABLE ISOTOPES
SYNTHESIS
UNIVERSE