Hadronic Decay of Late-Decaying Particles and Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis

Kazunori Kohri; Masahiro Kawasaki; Takeo Moroi

REVIEW

Hadronic Decay of Late-Decaying Particles and Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis

Masahiro Kawasaki, Kazunori Kohri, Takeo Moroi

Astrophysics · Submitted 20 Feb 2004 · 20 references

Pith's verdict: A solid, useful redo of the hadronic-decay BBN bounds; the qualitative result is robust, but the 6Li-driven numbers lean on a companion paper that was still in preparation.

T0 · AI review

How this review was made: An AI referee (selfhosted/deepseek-v4.1-flash) read the paper on October 29, 2026 and answered a fixed list of questions about it. T0 is the starting level every paper gets. The levels describe how deeply Pith has checked the paper, never the authors.

T0 AI review An AI read the paper and answered a fixed list of questions.
T1 Audit Automatic checks that the references and files the paper relies on exist and match.
T2 Compute The paper's code or calculations re-run with the same results.
T3 Formal statement The claims written out in a formal math language a computer can read.
T4 Proof Those claims proved, and the proof checked by computer.

How Pith checks papers →

· 4 major objections · 8 minor · Ask about this paper · The compiled record · Read the full review →

Challenge this review Comment (0) Read on arXiv ↗

Cite ▾

arXiv IDastro-ph/0402490 (version 3)

Pith IDEYETMANS, Pith's permanent record of this paper and its review

CitationKazunori Kohri, Masahiro Kawasaki, Takeo Moroi. "Hadronic Decay of Late-Decaying Particles and Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis." arXiv:astro-ph/0402490 (2004). https://pith.science/paper/EYETMANS

Cite this reviewBibTeX for Pith's review of this paper

Claim paper

Why Pith says this

Highlight any text to comment on it.

Editor's note

read the letter

This is the paper people cite when they need a bound on a late-decaying relic with a hadronic branch. The physics is straightforward and right: partons from the decay hadronize, the resulting protons and neutrons break 4He apart, and the debris shows up as non-thermal D, 3He and 6Li. Since the observed abundances cap those, you get a cap on Y_X = n_X/s. Figures 1 and 2 give m_X Y_X versus lifetime for B_h = 10^-3 and 1, and Table I turns that into ceilings on the reheating temperature for gravitinos. Those numbers get used, and they should: the hadronic channel really is far more restrictive than radiative decay alone, and the gravitino entries in Table I are the reason this paper has legs. The improvements over Dimopoulos et al. are real and honestly listed: modern hadron cross sections, JETSET for the initial spectrum, explicit energy loss off background photons and electrons, a proper chi-squared against current abundance data. The conservative choices are stated rather than buried, and the overlap with Jedamzik is disclosed in a note added. Footnote 2, where they admit an earlier version of this same letter got the electron energy-loss rate wrong and overestimated 6Li, is the kind of self-correction that makes me trust the rest more, not less. Two soft spots. First, the reaction network and cross-section compilation behind every curve live in Ref. [9], listed as in preparation. For a letter that is defensible, but it means the quantitative claim is asserted, not exposed, and a referee should ask for the companion to be at least submitted. Second, the 6Li channel is the binding constraint in the 10^2-10^4 sec window and it is the most fragile piece: it depends on the transport calculation, the T+4He and 3He+4He production cross sections at shower energies, and the survival treatment. The corrected Eq. (1) is used here, so the acknowledged error is not the issue; the issue is that the reader cannot check the cascade. One small thing: the sentence saying the 6Li constraint weakens for tau_X >~ 10^4 sec looks backwards relative to the preceding argument that 6Li is destroyed at T >~ 10 keV, i.e. early. If it is a typo it makes the bound conservative, but it should be fixed. Worth a serious referee, and worth citing.

Referee report

Significance

If the bounds hold, the result is a useful and directly applicable constraint: it converts a model-independent yield variable into limits on the reheating temperature that are two to three orders of magnitude tighter than the purely radiative case for a gluon-gluino decaying gravitino, and it does so for a class of particles (gravitinos and other weakly interacting relics) that colliders cannot probe. The paper deserves credit for several concrete methodological choices: the decay is parameterized model-independently rather than tied to one hidden sector; the parton-level input comes from a standard event generator rather than an ad hoc spectrum; the hadro-dissociation channels are treated on the same footing as photo-dissociation, which is the physically correct thing to do at tau_X < 10^6 s; the observational inputs are taken from independent published determinations; and the error budget explicitly includes the WMAP baryon-to-photon uncertainty together with cross-section and transferred-energy errors. The conservative choices are also stated openly (only an upper bound on 7Li is imposed, and n-bar and p-bar induced effects are omitted), which makes the quoted limits defensible.

Major objections (4)

[Methods paragraph and Ref. [9]] The quantitative content of Figs. 1 and 2 and of Table I rests on a shower code, a set of hadronic cross sections, and a BBN network that are not documented in the letter; the text defers them to Ref. [9], listed as 'in preparation'. This is load-bearing rather than cosmetic, because the binding constraint in the tau_X ~ 10^2-10^4 s window is the non-thermal 6Li production through T + 4He -> 6Li + n and 3He + 4He -> 6Li + p, and the reader is given no numbers for those cross sections, no statement of the energy range over which they are extrapolated, and no description of how the resulting 6Li energy distribution is computed. Please add a compact table of the dominant production and destruction channels with the cross sections (or references) actually used, state the energy range of the shower over which they are applied, and give the definition of the chi-squared used for the 95% C.L. bounds, including the number of degrees of freedom and how the 6Li/7Li < 0.07 and 3He/D < 1.13 two-sigma limits enter. The same request applies to the assertion that the bounds do not change significantly for m_X between 0.1 and 100 TeV, which is currently supported only by the same unpublished reference.
[Eq. (1) and footnote 2] As printed, Eq. (1) is not dimensionally consistent with an energy-loss rate: the right-hand side contains n_e m_e beta_N, which has dimensions of energy density, whereas dE_N/dt has dimensions of energy squared in natural units. The standard Bethe-type expression for Coulomb energy loss off background electrons has n_e/(m_e beta_N) in place of n_e m_e beta_N. Because footnote 2 records that an earlier version of this letter used an incorrect energy-loss treatment and thereby overestimated the non-thermal 6Li, this formula is directly load-bearing for the 6Li curve in Figs. 1 and 2. Please check the printed form, correct it if it is a typographical slip, and state explicitly that the figures were generated with the corrected expression. It would also help to quantify the residual sensitivity of the 6Li bound to the choice Lambda = 1 and to the treatment of the electron velocity distribution through I(beta_N/sqrt(2T/m_e)), since that is precisely the regime where the earlier error occurred.
[Paragraph on 6Li survival and destruction] Two statements in this paragraph appear to be mutually inconsistent and one appears to have its inequality reversed. The text first states that for tau_X >~ 100 sec the surviving rate of non-thermally produced 6Li is almost 1, and then states that if the temperature is higher than ~10 keV the 6Li is destroyed by 6Li(p,4He)3He; but T ~ 10 keV corresponds to t ~ 10^4 sec, so the two statements overlap in the range 100 sec < tau_X < 10^4 sec and cannot both hold as written. The following sentence, 'the constraint from the 6Li is weakened for tau_X >~ 10^4 sec', also runs opposite to the preceding logic, since higher temperature means earlier time and hence smaller tau_X; the weakening should occur at tau_X <~ 10^4 sec. Please reconcile the two survival statements and correct the direction of the inequality, and confirm that the shape of the 6Li curve in Figs. 1 and 2 is consistent with whichever version is correct. If the printed inequality is the erroneous one, the quoted bound is conservative, but the reader cannot tell this from the text.
[Table I] The entries of Table I are not monotonic in the gravitino mass and the pattern is not explained. For B_h = 10^-3 the bounds read 2 x 10^6, 3 x 10^6, 3 x 10^8 and 2 x 10^8 GeV for m_{3/2} = 100 GeV, 300 GeV, 1 TeV and 3 TeV, a jump of two orders of magnitude between 300 GeV and 1 TeV; for B_h = 1 the last entry (7 x 10^5 GeV at 3 TeV) exceeds the preceding one (3 x 10^5 GeV at 1 TeV). Since the corresponding lifetimes are tau_{3/2} ~ 4 x 10^5 sec at 1 TeV and ~ 1.5 x 10^7 sec at 300 GeV for N_G = 1, both in the region where Figs. 1 and 2 show a roughly flat bound, a factor of 100 in the derived T_R limit needs justification. Please state, for each row, which element drives the bound and which lifetime is used, and verify that each entry can be read off Figs. 1 and 2 at the stated tau_X. If the non-monotonicity is real and reflects structure in the bound (for example the transition between the 6Li and 3He regimes), say so explicitly in the caption.

Minor objections (8)

[Title and throughout] The manuscript contains numerous typographical and copy-editing errors that should be corrected before publication: 'Nuc leosynthesis' in the title, 'of late-decaying' with a missing space in the abstract, 'velosity' for 'velocity' (twice, in the energy-loss discussion), 'resent' for 'recent', 'knowledges' and 'informations' for 'knowledge' and 'information', 'as same as' for 'the same as', and 'transfered' for 'transferred'.
[Table I header] The header of Table I is garbled in the present version ('Bh = 10^-3 Bh = 1' with no column separation); please reformat it so that the two branching-ratio columns are unambiguous.
[Paragraph on hadronic branching ratio] The statement that the hadronic branching ratio is expected to be at least 10^{-(2-3)} because an emitted photon can convert to a quark-antiquark pair is plausible but unsupported; a reference or a one-line estimate of the conversion probability at the relevant energies would strengthen it.
[Observational constraints paragraph] The 3He/D < 1.13 (2 sigma) limit from Geiss (1993) is a presolar/solar-system value subject to stellar-processing corrections, and it drives the long-lifetime plateau where the paper says the most stringent constraint comes from 3He. Please state explicitly that this is the origin of the plateau and comment on the sensitivity of the plateau bound to the interpretation of that limit.
[Observational constraints paragraph] The text adopts both the Fields-Olive and the Izotov-Thuan values of Y_p; please state whether both are imposed simultaneously, whether either is used as a cross-check, and how the quoted systematic error is combined with the statistical one in the chi-squared.
[Paragraph on 7Li] The statement that only an upper bound on 7Li/H is conservatively imposed should be spelled out in terms of its consequence: no constraint is placed on 7Li destruction, so the bounds quoted here are one-sided in that channel. A single clarifying sentence would prevent misreading.
[Figs. 1 and 2] The figures would be easier to use if the axes were labelled with the units of m_X Y_X, if the lifetime range over which each labelled element actually controls the bound were indicated (for example by a thicker segment on the envelope), and if the caption stated which of the two Y_p determinations was used.
[Eq. (2)] It would help to note in the text that I(r) -> 1 for r >> 1 and I(r) ~ O(r^3) for r << 1, since these limits are what make the energy-loss rate efficient for fast nuclei and inefficient once the nucleus falls below the thermal electron velocity.

How Pith checks papers → · Full audit of this paper →

The paper

The paper claims

A particle that decays hadronically after the first second can wreck the light-element abundances, and that wreckage sets a far tighter ceiling on how many of them could have existed than photon-only decays ever did.

The reading

The paper asks what happens to big-bang nucleosynthesis if an exotic particle $X$ lives longer than about one second and decays with a non-negligible hadronic branching ratio $B_h$. The authors argue that the quarks and gluons from such a decay hadronize into jets whose protons and neutrons scatter off the ambient $^{4}$He, breaking it apart and building deuterium, $^{3}$He and $^{6}$Li through channels that no photon can open at those early times. Working out the shower, they convert the observed light-element abundances into an upper bound on the primordial yield $Y_X = n_X/s$ as a function of lifetime, for $B_h = 10^{-3}$ and $B_h = 1$. The payoff is a bound that is orders of magnitude stronger than the radiative-decay bound, and when applied to gravitinos it caps the reheating temperature of the universe at values as low as a few times $10^5$ GeV.

What carries the argument

The load-bearing mechanism is the hadronic shower: an energetic nucleon liberated by $X$'s decay scatters off a background nucleus, leaving that nucleus energetic and, in the inelastic case, dissociated. The competition that decides whether the shower does damage is between energy loss to background photons and electrons and scattering off background nuclei. For charged nuclei the authors use an energy-loss rate $dE_N/dt = -4pi alpha^2 Z^2 n_e m_e eta_N I(eta_N/sqrt{2T/m_e}) ln(Lambda m_e eta_N^2/omega_p)$ with $Lambda = 1$, which switches off once the nucleus falls below the thermal electron velocity. Neutrons are different: they do not lose energy to electrons below about 0.1 MeV, so they keep showering until roughly 0.3 keV, below which they decay before scattering and photo-dissociation takes over as the leading constraint.

Extended reading notes

Core claim

The central claim is that hadronic decay modes, not photons, dominate the big-bang-nucleosynthesis constraint on late-decaying particles. Because a hadronic branching ratio of even $10^{-3}$ is unavoidable once photons can convert to quark pairs, the authors treat hadronic decay as generic rather than exotic. They follow the hadronization of the primary partons, propagate the resulting protons and neutrons through the thermal bath, and include the hadro-dissociation of background $^{4}$He in the nucleosynthesis network alongside photo-dissociation. The result is a set of upper bounds on $m_X Y_X$ versus $X$'s lifetime: at lifetimes around $10^2$ to $10^8$ s the overproduction of deuterium and of $^{6}$Li (the latter made non-thermally through $T + {}^{4}{He} o {}^{6}{Li} + n$ and ${}^{3}{He} + {}^{4}{He} o {}^{6}{Li} + p$) sets the ceiling, while at very long lifetimes the bound relaxes back toward the radiative case and is fixed by overproduction of $^{3}$He. Applied to gravitinos, the bounds translate into reheating temperatures of $3 imes 10^{6}$ GeV or below for a 100 GeV gravitino and $7 imes 10^{5}$ GeV for a 3 TeV gravitino in the gluon-gluino channel.

Load-bearing premise

The bound is only as good as the modelled energy loss of non-relativistic nuclei scattering off background electrons, Eq. (1) with $Lambda = 1$; the authors' own footnote 2 records that an earlier version of this letter used a single mean electron velocity instead of the velocity distribution, which underestimated the energy loss and therefore overestimated the non-thermally produced $^{6}$Li.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

For a gravitino of mass 1 TeV decaying to gluon-gluino, the reheating temperature is bounded below about $3 \times 10^{5}$ GeV, compared with $3 \times 10^{8}$ GeV when the hadronic branching ratio is only $10^{-3}$.
Any cosmological model that leaves behind relics with lifetime between roughly $10^2$ and $10^8$ s and hadronic branching ratio at or above $10^{-3}$ inherits a yield ceiling of order $10^{-13}$ to $10^{-12}$ in $n_X/s$ for TeV-scale masses.
At the longest lifetimes the constraint is set by $^{3}$He overproduction and coincides with the radiative-decay bound, so hadronic decays matter most in the intermediate lifetime window.
The $^{6}$Li constraint fades above about $10^{4}$ s because thermally produced $^{6}$Li is destroyed by $^{6}{Li}(p,{}^{4}{He}){}^{3}{He}$ once the temperature exceeds roughly 10 keV.
Because the bound is expressed in $m_X Y_X$ and barely moves between 0.1 and 100 TeV, it can be read as a nearly model-independent ceiling on the relic abundance of any late-decaying species.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

The same machinery should apply unchanged to moduli, messenger fields, and other long-lived relics that decay into colored states, so the bound is a general statement about post-nucleosynthesis energy injection rather than a gravitino-specific one.
The authors conservatively omit $\bar{n}n$ and $\bar{p}p$ annihilation effects on the neutron-to-proton ratio for lifetimes above about $10^{2}$ s, noting that including them would strengthen the bound; quantifying that factor is the obvious next step and would sharpen the intermediate-lifetime window.
$^{6}$Li is the most discriminating channel and also the most sensitive to the shower transport, so an independent recalculation of the electron energy-loss rate and of the $T + {}^{4}{He}$ and ${}^{3}{He} + {}^{4}{He}$ transfer energies would decide whether the $^{6}$Li ceiling is robust or movable by a factor of a few.
If $^{6}$Li or beryllium were ever observed in metal-poor stars at levels above the standard prediction, this paper's non-thermal channel would be the natural explanation, turning the bound into a discovery channel for decaying relics.

Original abstract

We study the big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) scenario with late-decaying exotic particles with lifetime longer than $\sim 1$ sec. With a late-decaying particle in the early universe, predictions of the standard BBN scenario can be significantly altered. Therefore, we derive constraints on its primordial abundance. We pay particular attention to hadronic decay modes of such particles. We see that the non-thermal production process of D, ${\rm ^{3}He}$ and ${\rm ^6Li}$ provides a stringent upper bound on the primordial abundance oflate-decaying particles with hadronic branching ratio.

The compiled record

The paper's own sentences, arranged, kept beside the review and separate from it. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.

Compiled by classifier-1.13.0 via TypeSafe API, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-09-23: 1 request, 4,214 input tokens.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.03 · states limitation 0.15 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.19 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.40 · compares with prior results 0.16 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

The abstract, sentence by sentence

arXiv listing abstract v3. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

We study the big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) scenario with late-decaying exotic particles with lifetime longer than $\sim 1$ sec. With a late-decaying particle in the early universe, predictions of the standard BBN scenario can be significantly altered. Therefore, we derive constraints on its primordial abundance. We pay particular attention to hadronic decay modes of such particles. We see that the non-thermal production process of D, ${\rm ^{3}He}$ and ${\rm ^6Li}$ provides a stringent upper bound on the primordial abundance oflate-decaying particles with hadronic branching ratio.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	We study the big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) scenario with late-decaying exotic particles with lifetime longer than $\sim 1$ sec.	contribution 0.92	0.84	0.04	asserted 0.91
s1	With a late-decaying particle in the early universe, predictions of the standard BBN scenario can be significantly altered.	background 1.00	0.08	0.06	hedged possibility 0.64
s2	Therefore, we derive constraints on its primordial abundance.	contribution 0.94	0.94	0.15	asserted 0.94
s3	We pay particular attention to hadronic decay modes of such particles.	contribution 0.90	0.65	0.04	asserted 0.54
s4	We see that the non-thermal production process of D, ${\rm ^{3}He}$ and ${\rm ^6Li}$ provides a stringent upper bound on the primordial abundance oflate-decaying particles with hadronic branching ratio.	result 0.98	0.90	0.80	asserted 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: theoretical result 1.00 · evidence from proof or derivation 0.86.

What was examined, and what was not

sources read

arXiv listing abstract v3

not examined

full text
figures and tables
references and citing sentences
relations to other papers

levels run

P abstract

not run

S sections
T body sentences
C citations
R cross-paper relations

Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

Figures

**Figure 2.** FIG. 2. Same as Fig. 1, except for

Figures reproduced from arXiv:astro-ph/0402490 by the authors.

References

Works cited (20)

[9]

M. Kawasaki, K. Kohri and T. Moroi, in preparation

View on Pith
[1]

D. N. Spergel et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 148, 175 (2003)

View on Pith 2003
[2]

J. R. Ellis et al., Nucl. Phys. B 373, 399 (1992)

View on Pith 1992
[3]

M. Kawasaki and T. Moroi, Prog. Theor. Phys. 93, 879 (1995); Astrophys. J. 452, 506 (1995); M. Kawasaki, K. Kohri and T. Moroi, Phys. Rev. D 63, 103502 (2001)

View on Pith 1995
[4]

K. Jedamzik, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3248 (2000)

View on Pith 2000
[5]

R. H. Cyburt et al., Phys. Rev. D 67, 103521 (2003)

View on Pith 2003
[6]

S. Dimopoulos et al., Astrophys. J. 330, 545 (1988); Nucl. Phys. B 311, 699 (1989)

View on Pith 1988
[7]

M. H. Reno and D. Seckel, Phys. Rev. D 37, 3441 (1988)

View on Pith 1988
[8]

K. Kohri, Phys. Rev. D 64, 043515 (2001)

View on Pith 2001
[10]

T. Sjostrand, Comput. Phys. Commun. 82, 74 (1994)

View on Pith 1994
[11]

D. Kirkman et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 149, 1 (2003)

View on Pith 2003
[12]

B.D. Fields and K.A. Olive Astrophys. J. 506, 177 (1998)

View on Pith 1998
[13]

Y. I. Izotov and T. X. Thuan, arXiv:astro-ph/0310421

View on Pith Pith review arXiv
[14]

P. Bonifacio et al. Astron. Astrophys. 309, 91 (2002). 4

View on Pith 2002
[15]

V.V. Smith, D.L. Lambert, and P.E. Nissen, Astrophys. J. 408 262 (1993)

View on Pith 1993
[16]

J. Geiss, in Origin and Evolution of the Elements , edited by N. Prantzos et al., 89 (Cambridge University, 1993)

View on Pith 1993
[17]

B. D. Fields et al., New Astron. 1, 77 (1996)

View on Pith 1996
[18]

K. Hagiwara et al. , Phys. Rev. D 66, 010001 (2002)

View on Pith 2002
[19]

K. Jedamzik, arXiv:astro-ph/0405583

View on Pith Pith review arXiv
[20]

K. Jedamzik, arXiv:astro-ph/0402344. 5

View on Pith Pith review arXiv

Forward citations

Cited by 30 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

Asymmetric Dark Matter in SUSY with approximate $R-$symmetry
hep-ph 2025-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

A supersymmetric model with approximate R-symmetry links the baryon asymmetry to a gravitino dark matter relic, predicting a 5 to 10 GeV gravitino and a multi-TeV sparticle spectrum.
Heavy sterile neutrinos, entropy and relativistic energy production, and the relic neutrino background
astro-ph.CO 2011-10 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

Decaying 100 to 500 MeV sterile neutrinos can generate enough entropy to dilute the relic neutrino background and produce N_eff values consistent with CMB bounds, leaving a signature of N_eff not equal to 3 with no de...
Mass spectrum of primordial black holes from inflationary perturbation in the Randall-Sundrum braneworld: a limit on blue spectra
astro-ph 2006-03 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

In a Randall-Sundrum type-2 braneworld, primordial black hole abundances and the diffuse gamma-ray background imply a small-scale scalar spectral index n ≲ 1.3 for ℓ = 0.1 mm and reheating above 10^6 GeV.
Equation of state and Beginning of Thermalization After Preheating
hep-ph 2005-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

In a chaotic inflation model with a φ²χ² coupling, the equation of state reaches near-radiation domination within roughly 10^-35 s of the end of inflation, far earlier than full thermal equilibrium.
Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Hadronic Decay of Long-Lived Massive Particles
astro-ph 2004-08 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

Hadronic decays of a long-lived particle during big-bang nucleosynthesis overproduce deuterium, helium-3, helium-4 and lithium-6, bounding the particle's primordial abundance and, for gravitinos, the post-inflation re...

Show 25 more citing papers

No-scale hybrid inflation with R-symmetry breaking
hep-ph 2020-09 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

A no-scale supergravity hybrid inflation model with maximally broken R-symmetry yields a Starobinsky-like flat plateau and CMB-consistent observables, with new parameter freedom b up to 0.25.
BBN for the LHC: constraints on lifetimes of the Higgs portal scalars
hep-ph 2017-06 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Big Bang nucleosynthesis limits the lifetime of a Higgs-portal singlet scalar to below roughly 0.1 seconds for 2m_mu < m_S < m_h/2, because its decays inject mesons and nucleons that raise the neutron-to-proton ratio.
On Symmetric and Asymmetric Light Dark Matter
hep-ph 2011-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Asymmetric light dark matter evades cosmic microwave background bounds only if its annihilation cross section exceeds the thermal value by a few, which in turn requires a light mediator heavier than roughly 0.04 to 40...
Prospects for determination of thermal history after inflation with future gravitational wave detectors
astro-ph.CO 2011-10 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Fisher-matrix forecasts indicate that DECIGO/BBO-class detectors could pin the reheating temperature near 10^7 GeV and distinguish matter, radiation, and kination eras if the tensor-to-scalar ratio is around 0.1.
Cladogenesis: Baryon-Dark Matter Coincidence from Branchings in Moduli Decay
hep-ph 2010-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Late-time moduli decay can produce both the baryon asymmetry and dark matter from a common source, with the observed densities set by the modulus dilution factor and simple branching fractions.
New cosmological constraints on primordial black holes
astro-ph.CO 2009-12 accept novelty 5.0 of 10

Updated big-bang-nucleosynthesis and gamma-ray-background limits on the primordial black hole abundance dominate the mass range 10^9 to 10^17 g, except near 10^13 to 10^14 g where cosmic microwave background damping i...
Non-Gaussianity, Spectral Index and Tensor Modes in Mixed Inflaton and Curvaton Models
astro-ph 2008-02 accept novelty 5.0 of 10

In mixed inflaton-curvaton models, large non-Gaussianity can coexist with an acceptable spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio, and a consistency relation links the bispectrum and trispectrum when the curvaton stay...
Heavy Dark Matter Through the Higgs Portal
hep-ph 2008-01 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Including non-perturbative Sommerfeld enhancement of the annihilation rate lets a Higgs-portal singlet fermion saturate the measured dark matter density at masses up to about 25 TeV, well above the usual thermal-relic...
Gravitational waves in the complex-singlet-extended Manohar-Wise model
hep-ph 2026-09 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

In the complex-singlet-extended Manohar-Wise model, scanned benchmarks give first-order phase-transition gravitational-wave peaks near 10^-3 to 10^-2 Hz and a bias-tuned domain-wall peak near 2x10^-9 Hz that reaches p...
Waterfall phase in supersymmetric hybrid inflation
hep-ph 2025-07 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

Waterfall-phase e-foldings in R-symmetric SUSY hybrid inflation can produce a PTA-compatible scalar-induced gravitational wave background and, in SU(5), dilute monopoles to observable levels.
Dark Matter and CP Violation in Some Symmetry-Constrained 3HDMs
hep-ph 2025-06 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

S3-symmetric three-Higgs-doublet models allow dark matter in a 29-42 GeV window, exclude heavy candidates above 500 GeV, and admit MeV-scale light scalars, while continuous-symmetry variants produce mass-degenerate da...
Gravitational waves and dark matter with Witten effect
hep-ph 2025-01 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

A dark SU(2) phase transition can produce monopole dark matter, make the axion heavy via the Witten effect, and generate nanohertz gravitational waves matching PTA hints.
Constraints on Primordial Black Holes From Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Revisited
astro-ph.CO 2020-06 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

Modern deuterium and helium measurements tighten the upper limit on primordial black holes of mass 6x10^8 to 2x10^13 g, and the limits weaken substantially if black holes radiate mainly into hidden-sector particles.
Constraints on Primordial Black Holes
astro-ph.CO 2020-02 accept novelty 4.0 of 10

Updated compilation shows PBHs are tightly constrained across 55 orders of magnitude in mass, ruling out dominant dark matter contributions except in narrow windows, with many limits carrying observational uncertainties.
A Minimal Model of Gravitino Dark Matter
hep-ph 2017-01 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

A gravitino produced by freeze-in from the Standard Model thermal bath can be the dark matter for masses from MeV to PeV, with reheating temperatures of 10^5 to 10^10 GeV.
The Physics Programme Of The MoEDAL Experiment At The LHC
hep-ph 2014-05 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

The paper lays out the MoEDAL detector's design and its sensitivity argument for magnetic monopoles, long-lived charged particles, and multiply charged exotics at the LHC, without a quantitative comparison to ATLAS and CMS.
Cosmological bounds on pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons
hep-ph 2011-10 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

Thermal axion-like particles decaying before recombination are constrained by neutrino dilution (Neff), deuterium, and helium abundances, with Neff bounds sometimes stronger than helium bounds.
Updated BBN Bounds on Hadronic Injection in the Early Universe: The Gravitino Problem
hep-ph 2025-01 conditional novelty 3.0 of 10

With current light-element abundances, hadronic decays of long-lived particles are excluded above a yield curve in lifetime, and for gravitinos this translates into reheating temperature upper limits as low as 5×10^5 GeV.
WIMP dark matter candidates and searches - current status and future prospects
hep-ph 2017-07 accept novelty 3.0 of 10

A survey of WIMP dark matter theory and searches that argues the ~1 TeV Higgsino-like neutralino is the most natural surviving supersymmetric candidate and will be tested by tonne-scale underground detectors.
Particle physics models of inflation and curvaton scenarios
hep-ph 2010-01 accept novelty 3.0 of 10

The review argues that inflatons and curvatons built from MSSM flat directions are the class most tightly tied to known particle physics, and therefore the class most likely to be falsified by CMB and collider data.
Cosmic phase transitions: their applications and experimental signatures
hep-ph 2018-11 accept novelty 2.0 of 10

A review of cosmic phase transitions and their gravitational wave signatures, collecting the finite-temperature effective potential, bubble dynamics, and the collision, sound-wave, and turbulence source terms that map...
A review of gravitational waves from cosmic domain walls
hep-ph 2017-03 accept novelty 2.0 of 10

Unstable cosmic domain walls with tension between roughly 10^3 and 10^12 GeV and annihilation temperatures between 10^-2 and 10^9 GeV produce a stochastic gravitational wave background that pulsar timing arrays, LIGO,...
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and Particle Dark Matter
hep-ph 2009-06 conditional novelty 2.0 of 10

Big Bang nucleosynthesis bounds on non-thermal energy injection, charged-relic catalysis, and residual annihilation translate into strong constraints on particle dark matter, and may even account for the observed lith...
Primordial Black Holes
astro-ph 2007-12 conditional novelty 2.0 of 10

Primordial black holes provide a sensitive probe of early-universe particle physics, and collapsing closed domain walls could produce massive black hole clusters that seed galaxies.
Supergravity based inflation models: a review
astro-ph.CO 2011-01 accept novelty 1.0 of 10

Supergravity can accommodate new, hybrid, chaotic, and topological inflation, and Jordan-frame supergravity can host Higgs inflation, provided the Kähler potential or D-term structure is chosen to avoid the eta problem.

How later papers used it

92 later papers cite it

Evidence: substantial. 81 of the citing papers share no author with it, and 9 of those carry a confident label from Pith's citation classifier.

Pith read 11 of the 139 citing sentences, choosing only those whose citation markers point at this paper alone, and wrote the paraphrases from them. The summary, the counts, the evidence level, the links and the quotes come from code; the summary counts the papers listed below. A later paper is listed under a label when Pith's citation classifier gives one of its sentences that label at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), Pith's reading finds that the citing paper itself did it, and a second check confirms the paraphrase against the sentence. This section lists uses only. It does not list criticism or disagreement, so their absence here says nothing about how the paper has been received. Papers that share an author with this one are listed apart, under "By the same authors". A quote is the citing authors' own sentence, shown when their paper's licence is CC BY, CC BY-SA or CC0. JSON

2 later papers by other authors are listed below: 1 used its method or tool and 1 used its data or values.

Uses its method or tool 1 of 2 papers with this label

Followed this paper's treatment closely for the two loss mechanisms important at high energies of 1 GeV.

Nucleosynthesis Constraints on a Massive Gravitino in Neutralino Dark Matter Scenarios (2009) · 0.99 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting

Uses its data or values 1 of 3 papers with this label

Used figure 2 of this paper in its study of BBN constraints on cosmological scenarios with exotic long-lived particles.

Gravitino dark matter with neutralino NLSP in the constrained NMSSM (2010) · 0.94 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting

How the literature uses it

88 arXiv papers cite this in 134 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 108 sentences without a confident label

Contests it 1 paper

Accordingly, the $$ bounds given in [ref] are underestimated in the region $<1$.

The long-lived stau as a thermal relic · Reheating phase · contest 0.80

Builds on it 1 paper

The constraint on the electromagnetic showers [ref] has been extended to include hadronic showers [ref] .

Dark matter production in the early Universe: beyond the thermal WIMP paradigm · Big Bang Nucleosynthesis · 0.81

Uses its method or tool 2 papers

In this study, we revisit the impact of evaporating black holes on the formation of primordial nuclei, making use of the recent study by Kawasaki et al. (2018), who have used a sophisticated code to study the effects of long-lived particles on BBN [ref] .[For earlier work studying the impact of long-lived decaying particles on BBN, see Refs. [ref] .] In many respects, evaporating black holes alter the predicted light element abundances in ways that are similar to decaying particles.

Constraints on Primordial Black Holes From Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Revisited · The Impact of Evaporating Black Holes on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis · 0.97
At high energies $1$ GeV, two other loss mechanisms are important, and our treatment here closely follows that of [ref] .

Nucleosynthesis Constraints on a Massive Gravitino in Neutralino Dark Matter Scenarios · Energy Losses · 0.99

Uses its data or values 3 papers

These hadronic constraints, for a branching ratio of $10^-3$, were calculated in [ref] , where the $^4$He mass fraction for a $τ̃$ decaying with a lifetime $t ≤1$–$10$ sec requires that $m_τ̃ Y_τ̃ ≤10^-7$–$10^-8$ GeV.

Asymmetric Dark Matter in SUSY with approximate $R-$symmetry · $T≲m_SUSY$ and NLSP decay · 0.85
BBN constraints on cosmological scenarios with exotic long-lived particles predicted by physics beyond the Standard Model have been studied, and here we have used the figure 2 of Ref. [ref] .

Gravitino dark matter with neutralino NLSP in the constrained NMSSM · Neutralino life-time · 0.94
The observed light elements abundances give the following constraint on the yield of the unstable gravitinos [ref] : [equation] where $B_h$ denotes the hadronic branching ratio, which is assumed to be $10^-3$ for conservative discussions in this paper.

Inverted Hybrid Inflation as a solution to gravitino problems in Gravity Mediation · Solution: Dynamical SUSY breaking and low scale inflation models · 0.84

Compares with it 1 paper

However, qualitatively one can expect much easier path for O-helium catalysis of primordial heavy elements primordial heavy elements, than in CBBN CBBN [ref] or in nonthermal nucleosynthesis nonthermal nucleosynthesis [ref] ).

Primordial heavy elements in composite dark matter models · Discussion · 0.93

Cites it as support 2 papers

Even if $χ$ decays predominantly into photons (or other non-hadronic particles), $B_h$ may still be non-zero due to possible quark-antiquark pair production from virtual photon lines, inducing non-trivial and sizable changes in the light element abundances [ref] .

Updated BBN Bounds on Hadronic Injection in the Early Universe: The Gravitino Problem · Decay Modes · 0.96
However, the $^3He/D$ observed in the solar system should give a reasonable upper bound on the primordial value because this increases with cosmic time [ref] .

Constraints on Primordial Black Holes · Modern studies · 1.00

Cites it as background 14 papers

BBN constraints on cosmological scenarios with exotic long-lived particles predicted by physics beyond the Standard Model have been studied [ref] .

Gravitino dark matter in the constrained next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model with neutralino next-to-lightest superpartner · Constraints and results · 0.86
The primordial Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) predictions for the light elements abundance provide some of the most stringent constraints on the decays of unstable massive particles during the early Universe [ref] .

Gravitino Dark Matter and Light Element Adundances · Introduction · 0.88
However, even electromagnetic decays may induce hadronic modes [ref] .

Updated BBN Bounds on Hadronic Injection in the Early Universe: The Gravitino Problem · Decay Modes · 0.86

Discussion

Disagree with the review, or know something it missed? Leave a comment, highlight any passage above to comment on it, or challenge this review formally.

[1] [9]

M. Kawasaki, K. Kohri and T. Moroi, in preparation

View on Pith

[2] [1]

D. N. Spergel et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 148, 175 (2003)

View on Pith 2003

[3] [2]

J. R. Ellis et al., Nucl. Phys. B 373, 399 (1992)

View on Pith 1992

[4] [3]

M. Kawasaki and T. Moroi, Prog. Theor. Phys. 93, 879 (1995); Astrophys. J. 452, 506 (1995); M. Kawasaki, K. Kohri and T. Moroi, Phys. Rev. D 63, 103502 (2001)

View on Pith 1995

[5] [4]

K. Jedamzik, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3248 (2000)

View on Pith 2000

[6] [5]

R. H. Cyburt et al., Phys. Rev. D 67, 103521 (2003)

View on Pith 2003

[7] [6]

S. Dimopoulos et al., Astrophys. J. 330, 545 (1988); Nucl. Phys. B 311, 699 (1989)

View on Pith 1988

[8] [7]

M. H. Reno and D. Seckel, Phys. Rev. D 37, 3441 (1988)

View on Pith 1988

[9] [8]

K. Kohri, Phys. Rev. D 64, 043515 (2001)

View on Pith 2001

[10] [10]

T. Sjostrand, Comput. Phys. Commun. 82, 74 (1994)

View on Pith 1994

[11] [11]

D. Kirkman et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 149, 1 (2003)

View on Pith 2003

[12] [12]

B.D. Fields and K.A. Olive Astrophys. J. 506, 177 (1998)

View on Pith 1998

[13] [13]

Y. I. Izotov and T. X. Thuan, arXiv:astro-ph/0310421

View on Pith Pith review arXiv

[14] [14]

P. Bonifacio et al. Astron. Astrophys. 309, 91 (2002). 4

View on Pith 2002

[15] [15]

V.V. Smith, D.L. Lambert, and P.E. Nissen, Astrophys. J. 408 262 (1993)

View on Pith 1993

[16] [16]

J. Geiss, in Origin and Evolution of the Elements , edited by N. Prantzos et al., 89 (Cambridge University, 1993)

View on Pith 1993

[17] [17]

B. D. Fields et al., New Astron. 1, 77 (1996)

View on Pith 1996

[18] [18]

K. Hagiwara et al. , Phys. Rev. D 66, 010001 (2002)

View on Pith 2002

[19] [19]

K. Jedamzik, arXiv:astro-ph/0405583

View on Pith Pith review arXiv

[20] [20]

K. Jedamzik, arXiv:astro-ph/0402344. 5

View on Pith Pith review arXiv