A light particle solution to the cosmic lithium problem

by Dr Andreas Goudelis (HEPHY Vienna)

Wednesday 20 Jan 2016, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Paris

Salle 149

The theory of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) is one of the cornerstones of modern cosmology, since under its "standard" form it can successfully predict the deuterium and helium abundances in the universe. One of the long-standing problems of BBN is, however, its prediction for the corresponding Lithium-7 abundance, which overshoots the experimentally determined value by a factor 2-5. After an introduction to some basic notions of BBN and to a few mechanisms that have been proposed in order to resolve this tension, I will discuss a new potential solution to this "Cosmic Lithium Problem" that relies on the existence of light, electrically neutral particles that have substantial interactions with nucleons. The entire seminar will be very informal and on the blackboard (modulo some plots).