Big Bang Nucleosynthesis results refined via the Trojan Horse Method

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how the Trojan Horse Method can refine nuclear reaction rates used in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis models, leading to improved predictions of primordial element abundances, especially for lithium-7 and deuterium.

Contribution

It introduces the application of the Trojan Horse Method to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, providing new reaction rates that impact primordial abundance predictions.

Findings

THM-derived rates significantly alter SBBN predictions.

Improved agreement with observed lithium-7 and deuterium abundances.

First comprehensive analysis of all THM rates in SBBN models.

Abstract

This work presents the Trojan Horse Method (THM) as a powerful technique for measuring nuclear reaction cross sections at astrophysical energies. We then explore the impact of THM-derived reaction rates on the predictions of Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (SBBN) using the PRIMAT code. Primordial abundances are shown for the single rate impact and, for the first time, also for all the THM rates together. The result shows significant differences with the use of THM rates, which in some cases goes in the direction of improving the agreement with the observations with respect to the use of only reaction rates from direct data, especially for the $^7$Li and deuterium abundances, which are still open issues for SBBN.