Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2014
Volume 59, Number 5
Saturday–Tuesday, April 5–8, 2014; Savannah, Georgia
Session R11: Invited Session: Precision Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis |
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Sponsoring Units: GFB DAP Chair: Kenneth Nollett, Ohio University Room: Oglethorpe Auditorium |
Monday, April 7, 2014 10:45AM - 11:21AM |
R11.00001: Primordial deuterium at the per cent level Invited Speaker: Ryan Cooke We are currently in an exciting era of precision cosmology. With the release of the cosmic microwave background data recorded by the Planck satellite, we are now in a position to accurately test the standard model of cosmology and particle physics. In this talk, I will present two new, precise measures of the primordial abundance of deuterium -- the most accurate measurements to date -- derived from redshift $\sim3$ near-pristine damped Lyman-alpha systems. In light of these new measurements, we have performed a careful reanalysis of the best literature systems where the primordial deuterium abundance can be estimated. These precise measures, when analyzed in conjunction with the Planck data, now place strong limits on the effective number of neutrino species in the early Universe, and offers new insight into physics beyond the standard model. I will also discuss the future prospects of this technique and our ongoing survey to obtain new precision measures of the primordial deuterium abundance. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 7, 2014 11:21AM - 11:57AM |
R11.00002: A Bitter Pill: The Cosmic Lithium Problem Invited Speaker: Brian Fields Primordial nucleosynthesis describes the production of the lightest nuclides in the first three minutes of cosmic time. We will discuss the transformative influence of the {\em WMAP} and {\em Planck} determinations of the cosmic baryon density. Coupled with nucleosynthesis theory, these measurements make tight predictions for the primordial light element abundances: deuterium observations agree spectacularly with these predictions, helium observations are in good agreement, but lithium observations (in ancient halo stars) are significantly discrepant--this is the ``lithium problem.'' Over the past decade, the lithium discrepancy has become more severe, and very recently the solution space has shrunk. A solution due to new nuclear resonances has now been essentially ruled out experimentally. Stellar evolution solutions remain viable but must be finely tuned. Observational systematics are now being probed by qualitatively new methods of lithium observation. Finally, new physics solutions are now strongly constrained by the combination of the precision baryon determination by {\em Planck}, and the need to match the D/H abundances now measured to unprecedented precision at high redshift. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 7, 2014 11:57AM - 12:33PM |
R11.00003: Quark mass variations of nuclear forces, BBN, and all that Invited Speaker: Ulf-G. Meissner In this talk, I discuss the modifications of the nuclear forces due to variations of the light quark masses and of the fine structure constant. This is based on the chiral nuclear effective field theory, that successfully describes a large body of data. The generation of the light elements in the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis provides important constraints on these modifications. In addition, I discuss the role of the anthropic principle in the triple-alpha process that underlies carbon and oxygen generation in hot stars. It appears that a fine-tuning of the quark masses and the fine structure constant within 2 to 3 per cent is required to make life on Earth viable. [Preview Abstract] |
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