Primordial Nucleosynthesis in the Precision Cosmology Era

Understand

Primordial nucleosynthesis provides a probe of the Universe during its early evolution.

• Given the progress exploring the constituents, structure, and recent evolution of the Universe, it is timely to review the status of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and to confront its predictions, along with the constraints which emerge from them, with those derived from independent observations of the Universe at much later epochs in its evolution.
• Following an overview of the key physics controlling element synthesis in the early Universe, the predictions of BBN in the standard models of cosmology and particle physics are presented, along with those from some non-standard models.
• The observational data used to infer the primordial abundances are described, with an emphasis on the distinction between precision and accuracy.