Big Bang Nucleosynthesis - Post Planck

ABSTRACT
Big bang nucleosynthesis provides a window to the physics of the universe just seconds after the big bang. It predictions of the light element abundances of D, 4He, and 7Li can be compared with observational determinations. Over the last several years, significant progress has been made in the determinations of deuterium and helium abundances and most importantly results from Planck measurements of the microwave background have provided precise values for the baryon density of the universe, a key input used in abundance predictions. Planck data is combined with BBN to test the consistency of the Standard Model. Recent nuclear cross section data and its effect on BBN precision is also discussed. These predictions are sensitive to the conditions when the temperature of the universe was ≈ MeV or ≈ 10^10 K. Using inputs from the standard model of cosmology and particle physics yields excellent agreement between theory and experiment. Thus deviations from the standard model such as the number of particle degrees of freedom (often parametrized as the number of neutrino flavors) can be tested.
BIO
Keith Olive holds a Gloria Becker Lubkin Chair in Theoretical Physics at the University of Minnesota. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and was a research associate at CERN and Fermilab before joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota. His research lies at the interface between particle physics and cosmology, and he provided seminal contributions in several aspects of astroparticle physics including big bang nucleosynthesis, particle dark matter, baryogenesis, and inflation. Among several awards, he was the recipient of the 2018 Hans Bethe Prize and was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2003.

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