Primordial Nucleosynthesis: from Precision Cosmology To
DSF-20/2008, FERMILAB-PUB-08-216-A, IFIC/08-37 Primordial Nucleosynthesis: from precision cosmology to fundamental physics Fabio Iocco a1 , Gianpiero Mangano b, Gennaro Miele b,c, Ofelia Pisanti b, Pasquale D. Serpico d2 aINAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze, Italy bDip. Scienze Fisiche, Universit`adi Napoli Federico II & INFN, Sez. di Napoli, Complesso Univ. Monte S. Angelo, Via Cintia, I-80126 Napoli, Italy c Instituto de F´ısica Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Val`encia), Ed. Institutos de Investigaci´on, Apartado de Correos 22085, E-46071 Val`encia, Spain dCenter for Particle Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL 60510-0500, USA Abstract 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 Einstein’s general relativity. Key words: Primordial Nucleosynthesis; Early Universe; Physics Beyond the arXiv:0809.0631v2 [astro-ph] 16 Apr 2009 Standard Model PACS: 98.80.Ft; 26.35.+c; 98.62.Ai Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Standard Cosmology 6 1 Present address: Institut
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