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Register a new userThe lithium problem, a phenomenologists perspective
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Fabio Iocco
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Thirty years after the first observation of the 7Li isotope in the atmosphere of metal-poor halo stars, the puzzle about its origin persists. Do current observations still support the existence of a plateau: a single value of lithium abundance, constant over several orders of magnitude in the metallicity of the target star? If this plateau exists, is it universal in terms of observational loci of target stars? Is it possible to explain such observations with known astrophysical processes? Can yet poorly explored astrophysical mechanisms explain the observations or do we need to invoke physics beyond the standard model of Cosmology and/or the standard model of Particle Physics to explain them? Is there a 6Li problem, and is it connected to the 7Li one? These questions have been discussed at the Paris workshop Lithium in the Cosmos, and I summarize here its contents, providing an overview from the perspective of a phenomenologist.
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Using the cosmological constants derived from WMAP, the standard big bang nucleosynthesis (SBBN) predicts the light elements primordial abundances for 4He, 3He, D, 6Li and 7Li. These predictions are in satisfactory agreement with the observations, except for lithium which displays in old warm dwarfs an abundance depleted by a factor of about 3. Depletions of this fragile element may be produced by several physical processes, in different stellar evolutionary phases, they will be briefly reviewed here, none of them seeming yet to reproduce the observed depletion pattern in a fully convincing way.
The existence of two kinematically and chemically distinct stellar subpopulations in the Sculptor and Fornax dwarf galaxies offers the opportunity to constrain the density profile of their matter haloes by measuring the mass contained within the well-separated half-light radii of the two metallicity subpopulations. Walker and Penarrubia have used this approach to argue that data for these galaxies are consistent with constant-density `cores in their inner regions and rule out `cuspy Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profiles with high statistical significance, particularly in the case of Sculptor. We test the validity of these claims using dwarf galaxies in the APOSTLE (A Project Of Simulating The Local Environment) Lambda cold dark matter cosmological hydrodynamics simulations of analogues of the Local Group. These galaxies all have NFW dark matter density profiles and a subset of them develop two distinct metallicity subpopulations reminiscent of Sculptor and Fornax. We apply a method analogous to that of Walker and Penarrubia to a sample of 53 simulated dwarfs and find that this procedure often leads to a statistically significant detection of a core in the profile when in reality there is a cusp. Although multiple factors contribute to these failures, the main cause is a violation of the assumption of spherical symmetry upon which the mass estimators are based. The stellar populations of the simulated dwarfs tend to be significantly elongated and, in several cases, the two metallicity populations have different asphericity and are misaligned. As a result, a wide range of slopes of the density profile are inferred depending on the angle from which the galaxy is viewed.
A discrepancy has emerged between the cosmic lithium abundance inferred by the WMAP satellite measurement coupled with the prediction of the standard big-bang nucleosynthesis theory, and the constant Li abundance measured in metal-poor halo dwarf stars (the so-called Spite plateau). Several models are being proposed to explain this discrepancy, involving either new physics, in situ depletion, or the efficient depletion of Li in the pristine Galaxy by a generation of massive first stars. The realm of possibilities may be narrowed considerably by observing stellar populations in different galaxies, which have experienced different evolutionary histories. The WCen stellar system is commonly considered as the remnant of a dwarf galaxy accreted by the Milky Way (MW). We investigate the Li content of a conspicuous sample of unevolved stars in this object. We obtained moderate resolution (R=17000) spectra for 91 main-sequence/early sub-giant branch (MS/SGB) WCen stars using the FLAMES-GIRAFFE/VLT spectrograph. Li abundances were derived by matching the equivalent width of the LiI resonance doublet at 6708A, to the prediction of synthetic spectra computed with different Li abundances. Synthetic spectra were computed using the SYNTHE code along with ATLAS9 model atmospheres. The stars effective temperatures are derived by fitting the wings of the Ha line with synthetic profiles. We obtain a mean content of A(Li)=2.19+-0.14~dex for WCen MS/SGB stars. This is comparable to what is observed in Galactic halo field stars of similar metallicities and temperatures. The Spite plateau seems to be an ubiquitous feature of old, warm metal-poor stars. It exists also in external galaxies, if we accept the current view about the origin of WCen. This implies that the mechanism(s) that causes the cosmological lithium problem may be the same in the MW and other galaxies.
We review a non-standard Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) scenario within the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and propose an idea to solve both ${}^{7}$Li and ${}^{6}$Li problems. Each problem is a discrepancy between the predicted abundance in the standard BBN and observed one. We focus on the stau, a supersymmetric partner of tau lepton, which is a long-lived charged particle when it is the next lightest supersymmetric particle and is degenerate in mass with the lightest supersymmetric particle. The long-lived stau forms a bound state with a nucleus, and provide non-standard nuclear reactions. One of those, the internal conversion process, accelerates the destruction of ${}^{7}$Be and ${}^{7}$Li, and leads to a solution to the ${}^{7}$Li problem. On the other hand, the bound state of the stau and ${}^{4}$He enhances productions of n, d, t, and ${}^{6}$Li. The over-production of ${}^{6}$Li could solve the ${}^{6}$Li problem. While, the over-productions of d and t could conflict with observations, and the relevant parameter space of the stau is strictly constrained. We therefore need to carefully investigate the stau-${}^{4}$He bound state to find a condition of solving the ${}^{6}$Li problem. The scenario of the long-lived stau simultaneously and successfully fit the abundances of light elements (d, t, ${}^{3}$He, ${}^{4}$He, ${}^{6}$Li, and ${}^{7}$Li) and the neutralino dark matter to the observed ones. Consequently parameter space both of the stau and the neutralino is determined with excellent accuracy.
The cosmological lithium problem, i.e. the discrepancy between the lithium abundance predicted by the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the one observed for the stars of the Spite plateau, is one of the long standing problems of modern astrophysics. A possible astrophysical solution involves lithium burning due to protostellar mass accretion on Spite plateau stars. In present work, for the first time, we investigate with accurate evolutionary computations the impact of accretion on the lithium evolution in the metal-poor regime, that relevant for stars in the Spite plateau.
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