Primordial lithium and Big Bang nucleosynthesis
In the first few minutes the universe fused hydrogen into helium and small amounts of deuterium and lithium, and theory predicts the amounts precisely. Deuterium and helium roughly match observations, but the oldest stars contain about three times less lithium-7 than predicted.
Why it matters
Nucleosynthesis is the earliest well-tested epoch of the universe, so an unexplained mismatch could signal new particle physics or gaps in stellar physics.
Review
Fields B.D., The Primordial Lithium Problem, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, 2011. https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3551 reference checked
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- 3b29f7c24689…
- Public log
- Entry 190, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
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