Eternal annihilations: New constraints on long-lived particles from big-bang nucleosynthesis

Journal Article · Tue May 15 00:00:00 EDT 1990 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.41.3080· OSTI ID:6807727

Frieman, J A ^[1]; Kolb, E W; Turner, M S ^[2]

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1. NASA/Fermilab Astrophysics Center, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510-0500 (US)
2. NASA/Fermilab Astrophysics Center, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510-0500 (US) Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637-1433 (US)

In the early Universe, the relative abundance of a massive weakly interacting particle species freezes out'' when the annihilation rate becomes less than the expansion rate. Although ineffective in reducing the total number of the species, occasional annihilations still occur after freeze-out. The residual annihilations of massive particles (10 MeV{approx lt}{ital m}{sub {ital X}}{approx lt}1 GeV) after primordial nucleosynthesis can strongly alter the light-element abundances through photodissociation. For particles with typical weak-interaction cross sections and lifetimes {tau}{sub {ital X}}{approx gt}5{times}10{sup 6} sec, we find that the mass range {ital m}{sub {ital X}}{approx lt}1 GeV is ruled out, independent of how they subsequently decay.

• OSTI ID: 6807727
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA), Vol. 41:10; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
UNIVERSE
ABUNDANCE
ANNIHILATION
BOLTZMANN EQUATION
CROSS SECTIONS
DEUTERIUM
ENERGY DENSITY
HELIUM 3
HELIUM 4
LIFETIME
LITHIUM 7
PHOTOFISSION
PHOTONUCLEAR REACTIONS
WEAK INTERACTIONS
ALKALI METAL ISOTOPES
BASIC INTERACTIONS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERACTIONS
EQUATIONS
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
FISSION
HELIUM ISOTOPES
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
INTERACTIONS
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
LITHIUM ISOTOPES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
ODD-ODD NUCLEI
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
STABLE ISOTOPES
SYNTHESIS
640106* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Cosmology