2003/03/31 by Dominik J. Schwarz · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Big Bang nucleosynthesis #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Decoupling (probability) #Electroweak interaction #Neutrino #Nuclear physics #Nuclear reaction #Nucleosynthesis #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quark #Quark–gluon plasma #Scalar field dark matter #Universe #Weakly interacting massive particles #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/andp.200310010
published as Annalen Phys.12:220-270,2003 · review to appear in Annalen der Physik (51 pages, 16 figures); references added (v2); typos corrected, resembles published version (v3)
arxiv created 2003/05/16 · openalex publication_date 2003/05/28 · arxiv updated 2011/08/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The history of the Universe after its first second is now tested by high quality observations of light element abundances and temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background. The epoch of the first second itself has not been tested directly yet; however, it is constrained by experiments at particle and heavy ion accelerators. Here I attempt to describe the epoch between the electroweak transition and the primordial nucleosynthesis. The most dramatic event in that era is the quark-hadron transition at 10 μs. Quarks and gluons condense to form a gas of nucleons and light mesons, the latter decay subsequently. At the end of the first second, neutrinos and neutrons decouple from the radiation fluid. The quark-hadron transition and dissipative processes during the first second prepare the initial conditions for the synthesis of the first nuclei. As for the cold dark matter (CDM), WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) – the most popular candidates for the CDM – decouple from the presently known forms of matter, chemically (freeze-out) at 10 ns and kinetically at 1 ms. The chemical decoupling fixes their present abundances and dissipative processes during and after thermal decoupling set the scale for the very first WIMP clouds.