The Cosmological Lithium Problem Revisited

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical approaches to solving the cosmological lithium problem, exploring electron screening, dark matter universes, non-extensive statistics, and nuclear physics, assessing their potential to explain observed discrepancies.

Contribution

It presents new theoretical investigations into electron screening, dark matter, and statistical methods during Big Bang nucleosynthesis, offering potential pathways to address the lithium problem.

Findings

Electron screening models impact lithium abundance predictions.

Dark matter universe hypotheses offer alternative nucleosynthesis scenarios.

Recent nuclear reaction measurements inform and constrain theoretical models.

Abstract

After a brief review of the cosmological lithium problem, we report a few recent attempts to find theoretical solutions by our group at Texas A&M University (Commerce & College Station). We will discuss our studies on the theoretical description of electron screening, the possible existence of parallel universes of dark matter, and the use of non-extensive statistics during the Big Bang nucleosynthesis epoch. Last but not least, we discuss possible solutions within nuclear physics realm. The impact of recent measurements of relevant nuclear reaction cross sections for the Big Bang nucleosynthesis based on indirect methods is also assessed. Although our attempts may not able to explain the observed discrepancies between theory and observations, they suggest theoretical developments that can be useful also for stellar nucleosynthesis.