Big Bang nucleosynthesis with a non-Maxwellian distribution

TL;DR

This paper explores how non-Maxwellian distributions, modeled by Tsallis statistics, affect big bang nucleosynthesis predictions, finding that slight deviations from standard statistics can influence light element abundances.

Contribution

It introduces the use of Tsallis non-extensive statistics to calculate light element abundances in big bang nucleosynthesis, comparing results to observations and standard models.

Findings

Large differences in reaction rates between extensive and non-extensive statistics

Observations favor a non-extensive parameter q close to 1

Significant deviations from Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics are unlikely

Abstract

The abundances of light elements based on the big bang nucleosynthesis model are calculated using the Tsallis non-extensive statistics. The impact of the variation of the non-extensive parameter $q$ from the unity value is compared to observations and to the abundance yields from the standard big bang model. We find large differences between the reaction rates and the abundance of light elements calculated with the extensive and the non-extensive statistics. We found that the observations are consistent with a non-extensive parameter q = 1 + 0.05 - 0.12, indicating that a large deviation from the Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics (q = 1) is highly unlikely.