No Arabic abstract
We investigate the possibility that inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis may eventually be used to explain the abundances of li6, be9 and B in population II stars. The present work differs from previous studies in that we have used a more extensive reaction network. It is demonstrated that in the simplest scenario the abundances of the light elements with $Ale7$ constrain the separation of inhomogeneities to sufficiently small scales that the model is indistinguishable from homogeneous nucleosynthesis and that the abundances of li6, be9 and B are then below observations by several orders of magnitude. This conclusion does not depend on the li7 constraint. We also examine alternative scenarios which involve a post-nucleosynthesis reprocessing of the light elements to reproduce the observed abundances of Li and B, while allowing for a somewhat higher baryon density (still well below the cosmological critical density). Future B/H measurements may be able to exclude even this exotic scenario and further restrict primordial nucleosynthesis to approach the homogeneous model conclusions.
We examine effects on primordial nucleosynthesis from a truly random spatial distribution in the baryon-to-photon ratio ($eta$). We generate stochastic fluctuation spectra characterized by different spectral indices and root-mean-square fluctuation amplitudes. For the first time we explicitly calculate the effects of baryon diffusion on the nucleosynthesis yields of such stochastic fluctuations. We also consider the collapse instability of large-mass-scale inhomogeneities. Our results are generally applicable to any primordial mechanism producing fluctuations in $eta$ which can be characterized by a spectral index. In particular, these results apply to primordial isocurvature baryon fluctuation (PIB) models. The amplitudes of scale-invariant baryon fluctuations are found to be severely constrained by primordial nucleosynthesis. However, when the $eta$ distribution is characterized by decreasing fluctuation amplitudes with increasing length scale, surprisingly large fluctuation amplitudes on the baryon diffusion scale are allowed.
We reassess the problem of the production and evolution of the light elements Li, Be and B and of their isotopes in the Milky Way, in the light of new observational and theoretical developments. The main novelty is the introduction of a new scheme for the origin of Galactic cosmic rays (GCR), which for the first time enables a self-consistent calculation of their composition during galactic evolution. The scheme accounts for key features of the present-day GCR source composition, it is based on the wind yields of the Geneva models of rotating, mass losing stars and it is fully coupled to a detailed galactic chemical evolution code. We find that the adopted GCR source composition accounts naturally for the observations of primary Be and helps understanding why Be follows closer Fe than O. We find that GCR produce ~70% of the solar B11/B10 isotopic ratio; the remaining 30% of B11 presumably result from neutrino-nucleosynthesis in massive star explosions. We find that GCR and primordial nucleosynthesis can make at most 30% of solar Li. At least half of solar Li has to originate in low-mass stellar sources (red giants, asymptotic giant branch stars or novae), but the required average yields of those sources are found to be much larger than obtained in current models of stellar nucleosynthesis. We also present radial profiles of LiBeB elemental and isotopic abundances in the Milky Way disc. We argue that the shape of those profiles - and the late evolution of LiBeB in general - reveals important features of the production of those light elements through primary and secondary processes.
We present an up-to-date review of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). We discuss the main improvements which have been achieved in the past two decades on the overall theoretical framework, summarize the impact of new experimental results on nuclear reaction rates, and critically re-examine the astrophysical determinations of light nuclei abundances. We report then on how BBN can be used as a powerful test of new physics, constraining a wide range of ideas and theoretical models of fundamental interactions beyond the standard model of strong and electroweak forces and Einsteins general relativity.
A new accurate evaluation of primordial light nuclei abundances is presented. The proton to neutron conversion rates have been corrected to take into account radiative effects, finite nucleon mass, thermal and plasma corrections. The theoretical uncertainty on 4He is so reduced to the order of 0.1%.
We have modified the standard code for primordial nucleosynthesis to include the effect of the slight heating of neutrinos by $e^pm$ annihilations. There is a small, systematic change in the $^4$He yield, $Delta Y simeq +1.5times 10^{-4}$, which is insensitive to the value of the baryon-to-photon ratio $eta$ for $10^{-10}la eta la 10^{-9}$. We also find that the baryon-to-photon ratio decreases by about 0.5% less than the canonical factor of 4/11 because some of the entropy in $e^pm$ pairs is transferred to neutrinos. These results are in accord with recent analytical estimates.