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Updated Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Unstable Relic Particles

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arxiv astro-ph/0211258 v1 pith:VZA3VLZ6 submitted 2002-11-12 astro-ph hep-ph

classification astro-phhep-ph
keywords abundancebeencalculationsdeuteriummassivenucleosynthesisparticlesrelic
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

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We revisit the upper limits on the abundance of unstable massive relic particles provided by the success of Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis calculations. We use the cosmic microwave background data to constrain the baryon-to-photon ratio, and incorporate an extensively updated compilation of cross sections into a new calculation of the network of reactions induced by electromagnetic showers that create and destroy the light elements deuterium, he3, he4, li6 and li7. We derive analytic approximations that complement and check the full numerical calculations. Considerations of the abundances of he4 and li6 exclude exceptional regions of parameter space that would otherwise have been permitted by deuterium alone. We illustrate our results by applying them to massive gravitinos. If they weigh ~100 GeV, their primordial abundance should have been below about 10^{-13} of the total entropy. This would imply an upper limit on the reheating temperature of a few times 10^7 GeV, which could be a potential difficulty for some models of inflation. We discuss possible ways of evading this problem.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

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    Warm wave dark matter free streaming can shift by up to roughly 40% in a very early dark energy cosmology, while early matter domination moves the signal to unobservably small scales.

  3. Nucleosynthesis and CMB bounds on photophilic ALPs: a fresh look

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    Updated model-independent BBN and CMB bounds on photophilic ALPs that incorporate rare decays to light hadrons, show extended constraints for multiple reheating temperatures, and flag parameter space that may alleviat...

  4. Improved Big Bang Nucleosynthesis constraints on decaying massive relics

    hep-ph 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

    Updated exclusion contours on lifetime, mass and abundance of decaying BSM relics from refined BBN modeling of hadronic and electromagnetic injections across multiple two-body channels.

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