Primordial Nucleosynthesis: from precision cosmology to fundamental physics

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, highlighting improvements in theoretical models, experimental nuclear data, and its role in testing new physics beyond the standard model and general relativity.

Contribution

It provides an updated synthesis of BBN theory, experimental nuclear reaction rates, and its application as a probe for fundamental physics beyond current models.

Findings

Enhanced accuracy in nuclear reaction rates.

Refined astrophysical abundance measurements.

Constraints on new physics models from BBN data.

Abstract

We present an up-to-date review of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). We discuss the main improvements which have been achieved in the past two decades on the overall theoretical framework, summarize the impact of new experimental results on nuclear reaction rates, and critically re-examine the astrophysical determinations of light nuclei abundances. We report then on how BBN can be used as a powerful test of new physics, constraining a wide range of ideas and theoretical models of fundamental interactions beyond the standard model of strong and electroweak forces and Einstein's general relativity.