# Dark Sector Equilibration During Nucleosynthesis

## TL;DR

This paper explores how dark sectors equilibrating during nucleosynthesis can alter the universe's expansion rate, affecting light element abundances and the effective number of neutrino species, with implications for cosmological models.

## Contribution

It provides a model-independent framework to analyze dark sector equilibration effects on nucleosynthesis and examines specific models where dark sectors interact with neutrinos or photons.

## Key findings

- Significant dark sector effects can be consistent with observed light element abundances.
- Timing of dark sector equilibration critically influences nucleosynthesis outcomes.
- The impact on $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ varies depending on the model and epoch of equilibration.

## Abstract

Light, weakly-coupled dark sectors may be naturally decoupled in the early universe and enter equilibrium with the Standard Model bath during the epoch of primordial nucleosynthesis. The equilibration and eventual decoupling of dark sector states modifies the expansion rate of the universe, which alters the predicted abundances of the light elements. This effect can be encompassed in a time-varying contribution to $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$, the effective number of neutrino species, such that $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ during nucleosynthesis differs from its measured value at the time of recombination. We investigate the impact of such variations on the light element abundances with model-independent templates for the time-dependence of $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ as well as in specific models where a dark sector equilibrates with neutrinos or photons. We find that significant modifications of the expansion rate are consistent with the measured abundances of light nuclei, provided that they occur during specific periods of nucleosynthesis. In constraining concrete models, the relative importance of the cosmic microwave background and primordial nucleosynthesis is highly model-dependent.