Primordial Light Element Abundances

TL;DR

This paper reviews primordial light element abundances, their measurement, and implications for cosmology, highlighting recent revisions and ongoing puzzles in lithium abundance discrepancies.

Contribution

It provides an updated synthesis of observational data and theoretical models, emphasizing the impact of new atomic physics and systematics on primordial abundance estimates.

Findings

Revised helium abundance reduces tension with WMAP data.

D/H measurements align with WMAP predictions despite scatter.

Lithium abundance remains significantly lower than theoretical expectations.

Abstract

After few minutes the Universe evolved through conditions of temperature and density which permitted the first synthesis of astrophysically interesting abundances of D, 3He, 4He and 7Li. The relic abundances are sensitive probes of the nucleon density and so are the CMB acoustic oscillations, somewhat 400000 years later, which allow a stringent cross check. The CMB high precision estimate of the baryon density by WMAP is currently used as input parameter for standard big bang nucleosynthesis (SBBN) to interpret primordial bundances rather then being directly derived from the observations of light elements as was common use before. New atomic physics and identification of systematics lead to an upwards revision of the 4He primordial abundance at Yp=0.2477 +/- 0.0029 (Peimbert et al 2007) removing a major source of tension between SBBN and WMAP. The D/H as measured in QSO high redshift absorbing clouds shows an excess of scatter but the mean value is found in spectacular agreement with the WMAP prediction. The Li/H recently redetermined in halo dwarfs is more than a factor 4 lower than expected. We argue that the difference reduces to a factor 2 when the IRFM Teff scale is adopted. Diffusion has been suggested to have depleted Li in halo dwarfs by the required amount to remove the gap, however this would imply an implausible high abundance of the more fragile 6Li detected in some halo dwarfs, thus leaving the puzzle open.