2016/12/31 by Evan Grohs, E. Grohs, George M. Fuller +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Asymmetry #Big Bang nucleosynthesis #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Decoupling (probability) #Electron #Electron neutrino #Lepton #Lepton number #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutrino oscillation #Nuclear physics #Nuclear reaction #Nucleosynthesis #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.95.063503
published as Phys. Rev. D 95, 063503 (2017) · 19 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables
openalex publication_date 2017/03/03 · arxiv created 2017/03/05 · arxiv updated 2017/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We calculate Boltzmann neutrino energy transport with self-consistently coupled nuclear reactions through the weak-decoupling-nucleosynthesis epoch in an early universe with significant lepton numbers. We find that the presence of lepton asymmetry enhances processes which give rise to nonthermal neutrino spectral distortions. Our results reveal how asymmetries in energy and entropy density uniquely evolve for different transport processes and neutrino flavors. The enhanced distortions in the neutrino spectra alter the expected big bang nucleosynthesis light element abundance yields relative to those in the standard Fermi-Dirac neutrino distribution cases. These yields, sensitive to the shapes of the neutrino energy spectra, are also sensitive to the phasing of the growth of distortions and entropy flow with time/scale factor. We analyze these issues and speculate on new sensitivity limits of deuterium and helium to lepton number.