Electron-positron plasma in BBN: damped-dynamic screening

TL;DR

This paper models the dense electron-positron-photon plasma during Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis, analyzing how electromagnetic impurities affect screening potentials and discussing implications for primordial reaction rates.

Contribution

It provides an analytical linear response framework to describe dynamic and damping effects in plasma screening during BBN, connecting cosmology with dusty plasma physics.

Findings

Derived the screened potential analytically considering plasma damping

Identified limits of the linear response approach in BBN context

Suggested improvements for BBN reaction rate calculations

Abstract

We characterize in detail the very dense $e^- e^+ \gamma$ plasma present during the Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and explore how it is perturbed electromagnetically by \lq\lq impurities, {\it i.e.\/}, spatially dispersed protons and light nuclei undergoing thermal motion. The internuclear electromagnetic screened potential is obtained (analytically) using the linear response approach, allowing for the dynamic motion of the electromagnetic field sources and the damping effects due to plasma component scattering. We discuss the limits of the linear response method and suggest additional work needed to improve BBN reaction rates in the primordial Universe. Our theoretical methods to describe the potential between charged dust particles align with previous studies on planetary and space dusty plasma and could have significant impact on interpretation of standard cosmological model results.