A rapid and relatively simple scheme of calculation is elaborated and applied to cosmological recombination of helium. Employing the nonrelativistic Coulomb Green's function, a wavefunction of a colliding electron is represented in an integral form applicable for calculations. Bound electrons of helium are described by the Hartree-Fock wavefunctions. The free-bound transition probabilities into excited states of helium, and the probabilities of bound-bound transitions in helium are calculated in different modes. It is revealed that free-bound transition probabilities weakly depend on to what extent a field experienced by a colliding electron deviates from the purely Coulomb field with charge Z=1, whereas these probabilities strongly depend on the choice of a wavefunction of a bound active electron involved in recombination.
In a recent article R. T. Cahill claims that the cosmological model based on his "new physics of a dynamical 3-space" resolves the CMB-BBN Lithium-7 and Helium-4 abundance anomalies. In this note it is shown that this conclusion is wrong, resulting from a misunderstanding. In fact, primordial nucleosynthesis in this non-standard cosmological model exacerbates the LIthium-7 problem and creates new problems for primordial Helium-4 and Deuterium.
We carried out an exploratory analysis of the contribution of the underlying stellar absorption to the total uncertainty of the abundance of primordial helium using simple stellar populations models and observational data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Results indicate that our analysis yields a lower limit to the error on the helium abundance determination if the stellar absorption is neglected.
We present a review on the determination of the primordial helium abundance Yp, based on the study of hydrogen and helium recombination lines in extragalactic HII regions. We also discuss the observational determinations of the increase of helium to the increase of oxygen by mass Delta Y / Delta O, and compare them with predictions based on models of galactic chemical evolution.
Almost every helium atom in the Universe was created just a few minutes after the Big Bang through a process commonly referred to as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. The amount of helium that was made during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis is determined by the combination of particle physics and cosmology. The current leading measures of the primordial helium abundance (Y_P) are based on the relative strengths of H I and He I emission lines emanating from star-forming regions in local metal-poor galaxies. As the statistical errors on these measurements improve, it is essential to test for systematics by dev…
Based on observations of HII regions and the new computations of the recombination coefficients of the He I lines by Porter et al. (2013) we obtain a primordial helium abundance by mass of $Y_P = 0.2446\pm0.0029$. We consider thirteen sources of error for the $Y_P$ determination, some of them are mainly due to systematic effects, while the rest are mainly due to statistical effects. We compare our results with other determinations of $Y_P$ present in the literature. Combining our $Y_P$ value with computations of primordial nucleosynthesis we find a number of neutrino species $N_{eff} = 2.90\pm…
To place meaningful constraints on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis models, the primordial helium abundance determination is crucial. Low-metallicity HII regions have been used to estimate it since their statistical uncertainties are relatively small. We present a new determination of the primordial helium abundance, based on long slit spectra of the HII region NGC 346 in the small Magellanic cloud. We obtained spectra using three $409'' \times 0.51''$ slits divided in 97 subsets. They cover the range $λ\lambda3600-7400$ of the electromagnetic spectrum. We used PyNeb and standard reduction procedures …
Observational measures of the primordial helium mass fraction, $Y_{\rm P}$, are of interest for cosmology and fundamental particle physics. Current measures obtained from H II regions agree with the Standard Model prediction to approximately 1% precision, although these determinations may be affected by systematic uncertainties. This possibility can only be tested by independently measuring the helium abundance in new ways. Here, we propose a novel method to obtain a measurement of $Y_{\rm P}$ using hydrogen and helium recombination line emission from RELHICs: pristine, gas-rich but star-free …
Observations of metal-poor extragalactic H II regions allow the determination of the primordial helium abundance, Y_p. The He I emissivities are the foundation of the model of the H II region's emission. Porter, Ferland, Storey, & Detisch (2012) have recently published updated He I emissivities based on improved photoionization cross-sections. We incorporate these new atomic data and update our recent Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis of the dataset published by Izotov, Thuan, & Stasinska (2007). As before, cuts are made to promote quality and reliability, and only solutions which fit the data…
We report the first direct measurement of the helium isotope ratio, 3He/4He, outside of the Local Interstellar Cloud, as part of science verification observations with the upgraded CRyogenic InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES). Our determination of 3He/4He is based on metastable HeI* absorption along the line-of-sight towards Tet02 Ori A in the Orion Nebula. We measure a value 3He/4He=(1.77+/-0.13)x10^{-4}, which is just ~40 per cent above the primordial relative abundance of these isotopes, assuming the Standard Model of particle physics and cosmology, (3He/4He)_p = (1.257+/-0.017)x10^-4. …
The precision measurement of the primordial helium abundance $Y_p$ is a powerful probe of the early Universe. The most common way to determine $Y_p$ is analyses of observations of metal-poor \HII regions found in blue compact dwarf galaxies. We present the spectroscopic sample of 100 \HII regions collected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The final analysed sample consists of our sample and HeBCD database from Izotov et al. 2007. We use a self-consistent procedure to determine physical conditions, current helium abundances, and metallicities of the \HII regions. From a regression to zero met…
Spectroscopic observations of the chemical abundances in metal-poor H II regions provide an independent method for estimating the primordial helium abundance. H II regions are described by several physical parameters such as electron density, electron temperature, and reddening, in addition to y, the ratio of helium to hydrogen. It had been customary to estimate or determine self-consistently these parameters to calculate y. Frequentist analyses of the parameter space have been shown to be successful in these determinations, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques have proven to be very…
We investigate the possible impact of diffusion on the abundance of helium and other primordial elements during formation of the first structures in the early Universe. We consider the primary collapse of a perturbation and subsequent accretion of matter onto the virialized halo, restricting our consideration to halos with masses considerably above the Jeans limit. We find that diffusion in the cold and nearly neutral primordial gas at the end of the Dark Ages could raise the abundance of primordial elements relative to hydrogen in the first virialized halos: helium enrichment could reach $δY_…
Primordial nucleosynthesis is rightly hailed as one of the great successes of the standard cosmological model. Here we consider the initial forging of elements in the recently proposed Rh = ct universe, a cosmology that demands linear evolution of the scale factor. Such a universe cools extremely slowly compared to standard cosmologies, considerably depleting the available neutrons during nucleosynthesis; this has significant implications for the resultant primordial abundances of elements, predicting a minuscule quantity of helium which is profoundly at odds with observations. The production …
We present a state-of-the-art primordial recombination code, HyRec, including all the physical effects that have been shown to significantly affect recombination. The computation of helium recombination includes simple analytic treatments of hydrogen continuum opacity in the He I 2 1P - 1 1S line, the He I] 2 3P - 1 1S line, and treats feedback between these lines within the on-the-spot approximation. Hydrogen recombination is computed using the effective multilevel atom method, virtually accounting for an infinite number of excited states. We account for two-photon transitions from 2s and hig…
We study primordial nucleosynthesis in hypothetical hot regions that could be formed by the primordial density inhomogeneities. It is shown that the regions survived up to the present times acquire an abnormally high metallicity. This conclusion holds in wide range of initial parameters of such regions. We considered the thermonuclear reaction rates and estimated abundances of deuterium and helium-3 and -4 inside these areas. It has been established that all baryons tend to form helium-4, which is the thermonuclear link in the chain of formation of heavier elements.
The conventional approach to search for departures from the standard model of physics during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis involves a careful, and subtle measurement of the mass fraction of baryons consisting of helium. Recent measurements of this quantity tentatively support new physics beyond the standard model but, historically, this method has suffered from hidden systematic uncertainties. In this letter, I show that a combined measurement of the primordial deuterium abundance and the primordial helium isotope ratio has the potential to provide a complementary and reliable probe of new physics …
In this paper we refine the calculation of primordial helium recombination, accounting for several additional effects that were neglected or treated more approximately in previous studies. These include consideration of (i) time-dependent radiative transfer interaction between the 2^1 P_1 - 1^1 S_0 and 2^3 P_1 - 1^1 S_0 resonances; (ii) time-dependent radiative transfer for the partially overlapping n^1 P_1 - 1^1 S_0, n^1 D_2 - 1^1 S_0 and n^3 P_1 - 1^1 S_0 series with 3 <= n <= 10; (iii) electron scattering within a kernel approach. We also briefly discuss the effect of electron scattering an…
Within the framework of a flat cosmological model a propagation of an instantaneous burst of isotropic radiation is considered from the moment of its beginning at some initial redshift z0 to the moment of its registration now (at z=0). We take into account Thomson scattering by free electrons and scattering in La and Lb lines of primordial hydrogen and in lines 1s2 - 1s2p, 1s3p (1S-1P*) of HeI. It is shown that relative amplitude of spectrum distortions caused by scattering in these lines may be from 1000 to 10000 times greater than maximum possible amplitude due to scattering in subordinate l…
The products of primordial nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons are relics from the early evolution of the Universe whose observations probe the standard model of cosmology and provide windows on new physics beyond the standard models of cosmology and of particle physics. In the standard, hot big bang cosmology, long before any stars have formed a significant fraction (~25%) of the baryonic mass in the Universe should be in the form of helium-4 nuclei. Since current 4He observations are restricted to low redshift regions where stellar nucleosynthesis has occurred, …
We reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum of curvature perturbations in extended cosmological models, including addition of massive neutrinos, extra relativistic species or varying primordial helium abundance, from the latest cosmic microwave background data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope. We find that a scale-invariant primordial spectrum is disfavored by the data at 95% confidence level even in the presence of massive neutrinos, however it can lie within the 95% confidence region if the effective num…
Currently, the primordial helium abundance is best estimated through spectroscopic observations of H II regions in metal-poor galaxies. However these determinations are limited by several systematic uncertainties which ultimately limit our ability to accurately ascertain the primordial abundance. In this study, we improve the methodologies for solving for the reddening, the emission contributions from collisional excitation of the H I atoms, the effects underlying absorption in the H I and He I emission lines, and the treatment of the blended H I and He I emission at $λ$3889 with the aim of lo…
We analyze the influence of decaying sterile neutrinos with the masses in the range 1-140 MeV on the primordial Helium-4 abundance, explicitly solving the Boltzmann equations for all particle species, taking into account neutrino flavour oscillations, and paying special attention to systematic uncertainties. We show that the Helium abundance depends only on the sterile neutrino lifetime and not on the way the active-sterile mixing is distributed between flavours, and derive an upper bound on the lifetime. We also demonstrate that the recent results of Izotov & Thuan [arXiv:1001.4440], who find…
The LBT $Y_{\rm p}$ Project I: An Improved Determination of the Primordial Helium Abundance -- Project Description, Sample Selection, Observations, and Methodology
Fifty years of primordial helium abundances: A statistical reanalysis
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali（印度科学教育研究所）；Macquarie University（麦考瑞大学）；International Space Science Institute–Beijing（国际空间科学研究所北京分部）；Università di Roma Tor Vergata（罗马托尔维加塔大学）；INAF, Rome Astronomical Observatory（意大利国家天体物理研究所罗马天文台）
We derive here a robust bound on the effective number of neutrinos from constraints on primordial nucleosynthesis yields of deuterium and helium. In particular, our results are based on very weak assumptions on the astrophysical determination of the helium abundance, namely that the minimum effect of stellar processing is to keep constant (rather than increase, as expected) the helium content of a low-metallicity gas. Using the results of a recent analysis of extragalactic HII regions as upper limit, we find that Delta Neff<= 1 at 95 % C.L., quite independently of measurements on the baryon de…
Towards a measurement of the primordial helium isotope ratio
Durham University（杜伦大学）；Carnegie Science Observatories（卡内基科学天文台）；Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS and SU（巴黎天体物理学研究所，UMR 7095，法国国家科学研究中心和索邦大学）；University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；European Southern Observatory（欧洲南方天文台）；Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM (Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseill（艾克斯-马赛大学，法国国家科学研究中心，马赛天体物理学实验室）
The primordial $^4$He abundance (Y$_p$) is one of the key characteristics of Primordial Nucleosynthesis processes that occurred in the first minutes after the Big Bang. Its value depends on the baryon/photon ratio $η\equiv n_b/n_γ$, and is also sensitive to the relativistic degrees of freedom which affect the expansion rate of the Universe at the radiation-dominated era. The most used method of the determination of Y$_p$ is the study of the metal deficient HII regions located in blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs). In this paper, we discuss in detail various methods of the determination of HII …
As space expands, the energy density in black holes increases relative to that of radiation, providing us with motivation to consider scenarios in which the early universe contained a significant abundance of such objects. In this study, we revisit the constraints on primordial black holes derived from measurements of the light element abundances. Black holes and their Hawking evaporation products can impact the era of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) by altering the rate of expansion at the time of neutron-proton freeze-out, as well as by radiating mesons which can convert protons into neutrons…
Models that lead to a cosmological stiff fluid component, with a density $ρ_S$ that scales as $a^{-6}$, where $a$ is the scale factor, have been proposed recently in a variety of contexts. We calculate numerically the effect of such a stiff fluid on the primordial element abundances. Because the stiff fluid energy density decreases with the scale factor more rapidly than radiation, it produces a relatively larger change in the primordial helium-4 abundance than in the other element abundances, relative to the changes produced by an additional radiation component. We show that the helium-4 abun…
A cosmic lepton asymmetry $η_{\text{l}}=(n_{\text{l}}-n_{\bar{\text{l}}})/n_γ$ affects the primordial helium abundance and the expansion rate of the early Universe. Both of these effects have an impact on the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We derive constraints on the neutrino chemical potentials from the Planck 2015 data, assuming equal lepton flavour asymmetries and negligible neutrino masses. We find $ξ=-0.002 ^{+0.114}_{-0.111}$ (95\% CL) for the chemical potentials, which corresponds to $ -0.085 \leq η_{\text{l}} \leq 0.084$. Our constraints on the lepton asymmetry…
Current theory and measurements establish the age of the universe as ca. 13.8 billion years. For the first several hundred million years of its existence, it was a dark, opaque void. After that, the hydrogen atoms comprising most of the "ordinary" matter began to condense and ionize, eventually forming the first stars that would illuminate the sky. Details of how these "primordial" stars formed have been widely debated, but remain elusive. A central issue in this process is the mechanism by which the primordial gas (mainly hydrogen and helium atoms) collected via the action of dark matter cool…
EMPRESS. XV. A New Determination of the Primordial Helium Abundance Suggesting a Moderately Low $Y_\mathrm{P}$ Value
Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, The University of Tokyo（东京大学宇宙射线研究所）；Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学理学研究科物理学系）；National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, National Institutes of Natural Sciences（日本国立天文台，国立自然科学研究院）；Department of Astronomical Science, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies)（SOKENDAI（ advanced studies研究生院）天体科学系）；Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), University of Tokyo（东京大学 Kavli宇宙物理数学研究所 (WPI)）；Department of Physics, Tohoku University（东北大学物理学系）
We study rapid-turn trajectories in a class of two-field cosmological models, whose scalar manifold is the Poincaré disk. Background solutions in multi-field inflation, with field-space trajectories exhibiting sharp turns, can seed primordial black hole (PBH) formation. We investigate a class of exact solutions with hidden symmetry and show that they exhibit the kind of transient rapid-turn period, needed to induce PBH generation. Furthermore, we relax the symmetry condition and find, in a certain regime, modified solutions with improved behavior of the Hubble $η$-parameter, which preserve the…
Non-thermal photons deriving from radiative transitions among the internal ladder of atoms and molecules are an important source of photons in addition to thermal and stellar sources in many astrophysical environments. In the present work the calculation of reaction rates for the direct photodissociation of some molecules relevant in early Universe chemistry is presented; in particular, the calculations include non-thermal photons deriving from the recombination of primordial hydrogen and helium atoms for the cases of H2, HD and HeH+. New effects on the fractional abundances of chemical specie…
We propose a new scenario for the evolution of a binary of primordial black holes (PBHs). We consider a dynamical friction by ambient dark matter, scattering of dark matter particles with a highly eccentric orbit besides the standard two-body relaxation process to refill the loss cone, and interaction between the binary and a circumbinary disk, assuming that PBHs do not constitute the bulk of dark matter. Binary PBHs lose the energy and angular momentum by these processes, which could be sufficiently efficient for a typical configuration. Such a binary coalesces due to the gravitational wave e…
We constrain the lifetime of thermally produced Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) from primordial nucleosynthesis. We show that even a small fraction of mesons present in the primordial plasma leads to the over-production of the primordial helium. This puts an upper bound on the lifetime of HNLs $τ_{N}<0.02$ s for masses $m_{N}>m_π$ (as compared to 0.1 s reported previously). In combination with accelerator searches, this allows us to put a new lower bound on the HNLs masses and defining the "bottom line" for HNL searches at the future Intensity Frontier experiments.
Supermassive stars (SMSs) forming via very rapid mass accretion (Mdot >~ 0.1 Msun/yr) could be precursors of supermassive black holes observed beyond redshift of about 6. Extending our previous work, we here study the evolution of primordial stars growing under such rapid mass accretion until the stellar mass reaches 10^{4 - 5} Msun. Our stellar evolution calculations show that a star becomes supermassive while passing through the "supergiant protostar" stage, whereby the star has a very bloated envelope and a contracting inner core. The stellar radius increases monotonically with the stellar …
This work presents a Bayesian algorithm to fit the recombination and collisionally excited line spectra of gas photoionized by clusters of young stars. The current model consists in fourteen dimensions: two electron temperatures, one electron density, the extinction coefficient, the optical depth on the $HeI$ recombination lines and nine ionic species. The results are in very good agreement with those previously published using the traditional methodology. The probabilistic programming library PyMC3 was chosen to explore the parameter space via a NUTs sampler. These machine learning tools prov…
