2013/04/12 by Rachid Ouyed, Ouyed, Rachid
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.HE #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1304.3715
40 pages, 13 figures and 2 tables. This is a follow up to Ouyed (2013) at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1203.2703
openalex publication_date 2013/04/12 · arxiv created 2014/02/20 · arxiv updated 2014/02/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In 1982, Monique and Francois Spite discovered that the 7Li abundance in the atmosphere of old metal-poor dwarf stars in the galactic halo was independent of metallicity and temperature. Since then, 7Li abundance in the Universe has become a subject of intrigue, because there is less of it in Population II dwarf stars (by a factor of 3) than standard big bang nucleosynthesis predicts. Here we show how quark-novae (QNe) occurring in the wake of Pop. III stars, can elegantly produce an A(Li) ~ 2.2 Lithium plateau in Pop. II (low-mass) stars formed in the pristine cloud swept up by the mixed SN+QN ejecta. We also find an increase in the scatter as well as an eventual drop in A(Li) below the Spite plateau values for very low metallicity ([Fe/H] < -3) in excellent agreement with observations. We propose a solution to the discrepancy between the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis 7Li abundance and the Spite plateau and list some implications and predictions of our model.