2019/12/11 by Jailson Alcaniz, J. S. Alcaniz, Nicolás Bernal +7 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1912.05563
5 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2019/12/11 · openalex publication_date 2019/12/11 · arxiv updated 2019/12/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Currently, the standard cosmological model faces some tensions and discrepancies between observations at early and late cosmological time. One of them concerns the well-known H0-tension problem, i.e., a ∼4.4σ-difference between the early-time estimate and late-time measurements of the Hubble constant, H0. Another puzzling question rests in the cosmological lithium abundance, where again local measurements differ from the one predicted by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). In this work, we show that a mechanism of light dark matter production might hold the answer for these questions. If dark matter particles are sufficiently light and a fraction of them was produced non-thermally in association with photons, this mechanism has precisely what is needed to destroy Lithium without spoiling other BBN predictions. Besides, it produces enough radiation that leads to a larger H0 value, reconciling early and late-time measurements of the Hubble expansion rate without leaving sizable spectral distortions in the Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum.