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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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NASA NTRS1992

Light-element abundances in Population II dwarfs

This paper reviews the abundances of the light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron in main-sequence and subgiant, Population II stars. Li is important to cosmology because it is synthesized in the Big Bang, but is also used to study stellar structure. Beryllium is useful for studying galactic chemical evolution because its formation in the interstellar medium involves different physics to stellar nucleosynthesis, and it thus provides independent data on the evolution of the halo. Some (though not all) inhomogeneous Big Bang nucleosynthesis codes predict a significant primordial component to this element, so its observed abundance may constrain such models. Boron, observations of which became feasible with the operation of the Hubble Space Telescope, provides complementary data to Be, helping check the element ratios predicted by calculations of spallation reactions in the interstellar medium, and will indicate whether the observed Be abundance has an excess over the expected spallation component, indicating a possible primordial component.

Ryan, Sean G.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Prospects and limitations for constraining light relics with primordial abundance measurements

The light relic density affects the thermal and expansion history of the early Universe, leaving a number of observable imprints. We focus on the primordial abundances of light elements produced during the process of big bang nucleosynthesis that are influenced by the light relic density. Primordial abundances can be used to infer the density of light relics and thereby serve as a probe of physics beyond the standard model. We calculate the observational uncertainty on primordial light element abundances and associated quantities that would be required in order for these measurements to achieve sensitivity to the light relic density comparable to that anticipated from upcoming cosmic microwave background surveys. We identify the nuclear reaction rates that need to be better measured to maximize the utility of future observations. In this work, we show that improved measurements of the primordial helium-4 abundance can improve constraints on light relics, while more precise measurements of the primordial deuterium abundance are unlikely to be competitive with cosmic microwave background measurements of the light relic density.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1989

Primordial lithium and the standard model(s)

The results of new theoretical work on surface Li-7 and Li-6 evolution in the oldest halo stars are presented, along with a new and refined analysis of the predicted primordial Li abundance resulting from big-bang nucleosynthesis. This makes it possible to determine the constraints which can be imposed on cosmology using primordial Li and both standard big-bang and stellar-evolution models. This leads to limits on the baryon density today of 0.0044-0.025 (where the Hubble constant is 100h km/sec Mpc) and imposes limitations on alternative nucleosynthesis scenarios.

Deliyannis, Constantine P.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Implications of the non-observation of 6 Li in halo stars for the primordial 7 Li problem

The primordial Lithium Problem is intimately connected to the assumption that the 7 Li abundance observed in metal-poor halo stars is unchanged from its primordial value, which lies significantly below the predictions of standard big-bang nucleosynthesis. Two key lines of evidence have argued that these stars have not significantly depleted their initial (mostly primordial) 7 Li: i) the lack of dispersion in Li abundance measurements at low metallicity (and high surface temperature); and ii) the detection of the more fragile 6 Li isotope in at least two halo stars. The purported 6 Li detections were in good agreement with predictions from cosmic-ray nucleosynthesis which is responsible for the origin of 6 Li. This concordance left little room for 6 Li depletion, and the apparent 6 Li survival implied that 7 Li largely evaded destruction, because stellar interiors destroy 6 Li more vigorously then than 7 Li. Recent (re)-observations of halo stars challenge the evidence against 7 Li depletion: i) lithium elemental abundances now show significant dispersion, and ii) sensitive 6 Li searches now reveal only upper limits to the 6 Li/ 7 Li ratio. We discuss the consequences of these 6 Li non-detections on the primordial 7 Li Problem, Galactic cosmic-ray nucleosynthesis, and the question of differential depletion of Li in stars. The tight new 6 Li upper limits generally fall far below the predictions of cosmic-ray nucleosynthesis, implying that substantial 6 Li depletion has occurred — by factors up to 50. We show that in stars with 6 Li limits and thus lower bounds on 6 Li depletion, an equal amount of 7 Li depletion is more than sufficient to resolve the primordial 7 Li Problem. This picture is consistent with well-studied stellar models in which 7 Li is less depleted than 6 Li, and strengthen the case that the Lithium Problem has an astrophysical solution. We conclude by suggesting future observations that could test these ideas.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1995

Cosmological implications of ROSAT observations of groups and clusters of galaxies

We have combined ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) and optical observations of a sample of groups and clusters of galaxies to determine the fundamental parameters of these systems (e.g., the dark matter distribution, gas mass fraction, baryon mass fraction, mass-to-light ratio, and the ratio of total-to-luminous mass). Imaging X-ray spectroscopy of groups and clusters show that the gas is essentially isothermal beyond the central region, indicating that the total mass density (mostly dark matter) scales as rho(sub dark) varies as 1/r squared. The density profile of the hot X-ray emitting gas is fairly flat in groups with rho(sub gas) varies as 1/r and becomes progressively steeper in hotter richer systems, with rho(sub gas) varies as 1/r squared in the richest clusters. These results show, that in general, the hot X-ray-emitting gas is the most extended mass component in groups and clusters, the galaxies are the most centrally concentrated component, and the dark matter is intermediate between the two. The flatter density rofile of the hot gas compared to the dark matter produces a gas mass fraction that increases with radius within each object. There is also a clear trend of increasing gas mass fraction (from 2% to 30%) between elliptical galaxies and rich clusters due to the greater detectable extent of the X-ray emission in richer systems. For the few systems in which the X-ray emission can be traced to the virial radius (where the overdensity delta is approximately equal 200), the gas mass fraction (essentially the baryon mass fraction) approaches a roughly constant value of 30%, suggesting that this is the true primordial value. Based on standard big bang nucleosynthesis, the large baryon mass fraction implies that Omega = 0.1 - 0.2. The antibiased gas distribution suggests that feedback from galaxy formation and hydrodynamics play important roles in the formation of structure on the scale of galaxies to rich clusters. All the groups and clusters in our sample have mass-to-light ratios of M/L(sub V) approximately 100 - 150 solar mass/solar luminosity, which strongly contrasts with the traditional view that the mass-to-light ratio of rich clusters is significantly greater than individual galaxies or groups with M/L(sub V) approximately 250 - 300 solar mass/solar luminosity. We also show that M/L(sub V is essentially constant within the virial radius of clusters (where delta is greater than or approximately 200), which is consistent with the peaks formalism of biased galaxy formation. While the mass-to-light ratios of groups and clusters are comparable (indicating a constant mass fraction of optically luminous material), the ratio of the total mass-to-luminous mass (gas plus stars) monotonically decreases between galaxies and clusters. The decrease in M(sub total)/M(sub lum) arises from two factors: (1) the composition of baryonic matter varies from a predominance of optically luminous material (stars) on the scale of galaxies (approximately 10 kpc) to a predominance of X-ray luminous material (hot gas) on the scale of rich clusters (approximately 1 Mpc), and (2) the hot gas has a more extended spatial distribution than the gravitating matter. The observed decrease M(sub total)/M(sub lum) between galaxies and clusters indicates that the universe actually becomes `brighter' on mass scales between 10(exp 12) and 10(exp 15) solar mass, in the sense that a greater fraction of the gravitating mass is observable.

David, Laurence P.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Astrophysical Li-7 as a product of big bang nucleosynthesis and galactic cosmic-ray spallation

The astrophysical Li-7 abundance is considered to be largely primordial, while the Be and B abundances are thought to be due to galactic cosmic ray (GCR) spallation reactions on top of a much smaller big bang component. But GCR spallation should also produce Li-7. As a consistency check on the combination of big bang nucleosynthesis and GCR spallation, the Be and B data from a sample of hot population II stars is used to subtract from the measured Li-7 abundance an estimate of the amount generated by GCR spallation for each star in the sample, and then to add to this baseline an estimate of the metallicity-dependent augmentation of Li-7 due to spallation. The singly reduced primordial Li-7 abundance is still consistent with big bang nucleosynthesis, and a single GCR spallation model can fit the Be, B, and corrected Li-7 abundances for all the stars in the sample.

Olive, Keith A.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Warm Hawking relics from primordial black hole domination

We study the cosmological impact of warm, dark-sector relic particles produced as Hawkingradiation in a primordial-black-hole-dominated universe before big bang nucleosynthesis. If thesedark-sector particles are stable, they would survive to the present day as Hawking relicsand modify the growth of cosmological structure. We show that such relics are producedwith much larger momenta, but in smaller quantities than the familiar thermal relics considered instandard cosmology. Consequently, Hawking relics with keV–MeV masses affect the growth oflarge-scale structure in a similar way to eV-scale thermal relics like massive neutrinos. Wemodel their production and evolution, and show that their momentum distributions are broader thancomparable relics with thermal distributions. Warm Hawking relics affect the growth ofcosmological perturbations and we constrain their abundance to be less than 2% of the darkmatter over a broad range of their viable parameter space. Finally, we examine how futuremeasurements of the matter power spectrum can distinguish Hawking relics from thermal particles.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Asymmetric reheating by primordial black holes

Here we investigate Hawking evaporation of a population of primordial black holes (PBHs) prior to big bang nucleosynthesis as a mechanism to achieve asymmetric reheating of two sectors coupled solely by gravity. While the visible sector is reheated by the inflaton or a modulus, the dark sector is reheated by PBHs. Compared to inflationary or modular reheating of both sectors, there are two advantages: (i) inflaton or moduli mediated operators that can subsequently thermalize the dark sector with the visible sector are not relevant to the asymmetric reheating process and (ii) the mass and abundance of the PBHs provide parametric control of the thermal history of the dark sector, and in particular the ratio of the temperatures of the two sectors. Asymmetric reheating with PBHs turns out to have a particularly rich dark sector phenomenology, which we explore using a single self-interacting real scalar field in the dark sector as a template. Four thermal histories, involving nonrelativistic and relativistic dark matter at chemical equilibrium, followed by the presence or absence of cannibalism, are explored. These histories are then constrained by the observed relic abundance in the current Universe and the Bullet Cluster. The case where PBHs dominate the energy density of the Universe, and reheat both the visible as well as the dark sectors, is also treated in detail.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Primordial Black Hole Triggered Type Ia Supernovae. I. Impact on Explosion Dynamics and Light Curves

Primordial black holes (PBHs) in the asteroid-mass window are compelling dark matter candidates, made plausible by the existence of black holes and by the variety of mechanisms of their production in the early Universe. If a PBH falls into a white dwarf (WD), the strong tidal forces can generate enough heat to trigger a thermonuclear runaway explosion, depending on the WD’s mass and the PBH’s orbital parameters. In this work, we investigate the WD explosion triggered by the passage of a PBH. We perform 2D simulations of the WD undergoing thermonuclear explosion in this scenario, with the predicted ignition site as a parameter assuming the deflagration–detonation transition model. We study the explosion dynamics, and predict the associated light curves and nucleosynthesis. We find that the model sequence predicts light curves which align with the Phillips relation (B max versus ΔM 15 ). Our models hint at a unifying approach in triggering Type Ia supernovae without involving two distinctive evolutionary tracks.

Dark matter↗
DOE OSTI2020

Hierarchical Bayesian Thermonuclear Rate for the 7 Be(n,p) 7 Li Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Reaction

Big Bang nucleosynthesis provides the earliest probe of standard model physics, at a time when the universe was less than 1000 seconds old. It determines the abundances of the lightest nuclides, which give rise to the subsequent history of the visible matter in the universe. This work derives new 7 Be(n,p) 7 Li thermonuclear reaction rates based on all available experimental information. This reaction sensitively impacts the primordial abundances of 7 Be and 7 Li during big bang nucleosynthesis. We critically evaluate all available data and disregard experimental results that are questionable. For the nuclear model, we adopt an incoherent sum of single-level, two-channel, R -matrix approximation expressions, which are implemented into a hierarchical Bayesian model, to analyze the remaining six data sets we deem most reliable. In the fitting of the data, we consistently model all known sources of uncertainty, including discrepant absolute normalizations of different data sets, and also take the variation of the neutron and proton channel radii into account, hence providing less biased estimates of the 7 Be(n,p) 7 Li thermonuclear rates. From the resulting posteriors, we extract R -matrix parameters ($E_r, γ^2_n, γ^2_p$) and derive excitation energies and partial and total widths. Our fit is sensitive to the contributions of the first three levels above the neutron threshold. Reaction rates were computed by integrating 10,000 samples of the reduced cross section. Our 7 Be(n,p) 7 Li thermonuclear rates have uncertainties between 1.5% and 2.0% at temperatures of ≤1 GK. Finally, we compare our rates to previous results and find that the 7 Be(n,p) 7 Li rates most commonly used in big bang simulations have uncertainties that are too optimistic.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Recycled dark matter

Here, we outline a new production mechanism for dark matter that we dub “recycling”: dark sector particles are kinematically trapped in the false vacuum during a dark phase transition; the false pockets collapse into primordial black holes (PBHs), which ultimately evaporate before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) to reproduce the dark sector particles. The requirement that all PBHs evaporate prior to BBN necessitates high scale phase transitions and hence high scale masses for the dark sector particles in the true vacuum. Our mechanism is therefore particularly suited for the production of ultra heavy dark matter (UHDM) with masses above ~10 12 GeV. The correct relic density of UHDM is obtained because of the exponential suppression of the false pocket number density. Recycled UHDM has several novel features: the dark sector today consists of multiple decoupled species that were once in thermal equilibrium and the PBH formation stage has extended mass functions whose shape can be controlled by IR operators coupling the dark and visible sectors.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Solar mass primordial black holes in moduli dominated universe

In this report we explore the prospect of producing primordial black holes around the solar mass region during an early matter domination epoch. The early matter-dominated epoch can arise when a moduli field comes to dominate the energy density of the Universe prior to big bang nucleosynthesis. The absence of radiation pressure during a matter-dominated epoch enhances primordial black hole formation from the gravitational collapse of primordial density fluctuations. In particular, we find that primordial black holes are produced in the 0.1 - 10M ⊙ mass range with a favorable choice of parameters in the theory. However, they cannot explain all of the merger events detected by the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave search. In such a case, primordial black holes form about 4% of the total dark matter abundance, of which 95% belongs to the LIGO/Virgo consistent mass range. The rest of the dark matter could be in the form of particles that are produced from the decay of the moduli field during reheating.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1994

Astrophysical Applications of Quantum Corrections to the Equation of State of a Plasma

The quantum electrodynamic correction to the equation of state of a plasma at finite temperature is applied to the areas of solar physics and cosmology. A previously neglected, purely quantum term in the correction is found to change the equation of state in the solar core by -0.37%, which is roughly estimated to decrease the calculated high energy neutrino flux by about 2.2%. We also show that a previous calculation of the effect of this correction on big bang nucleosynthesis is incomplete, and we estimate the correction to the primordial helium abundance Y to be Delta A= 1.4 x 10(exp -4). A physical explanation for the correction is found in terms of corrections to the dispersion relation of the electron, positron, and photon.

Heckler, Andrew F.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Accurate Measurements of the Local Deuterium Abundance from HST Spectra

An accurate measurement of the primordial value of D/H would provide a critical test of nucleosynthesis models for the early universe and the baryon density. I briefly summarize the ongoing HST observations of the interstellar H and D Lyman-alpha absorption for lines of sight to nearby stars and comment on recent reports of extragalactic D/H measurements.

Linsky, Jeffrey L.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Solar-system abundances and processes of nucleosynthesis

The origin of the elements is studied. The average elemental composition of the solar system is examined and used to infer the primordial solar system abundances of the individual nuclides. Patterns in these nuclide abundances are used as clues to their origin. The possible cosmic significance of the patterns are considered. The astrophysical settings for nucleosynthesis and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy and information based on observed isotopic anomalies in meteorites are taken into account.

Woolum, Dorothy S.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Cosmological quantum chromodynamics, neutron diffusion, and the production of primordial heavy elements

A simple one-dimensional model is used to describe the evolution of neutron density before and during nucleosynthesis in a high-entropy bubble left over from the cosmic quark-hadron phase transition. It is shown why cosmic nucleosynthesis in such a neutron-rich environment produces a surfeit of elements heavier than lithium. Analytical and numerical techniques are used to estimate the abundances of carbon, nitrogen, and heavier elements up to Ne-22. A high-density neutron-rich region produces enough primordial N-14 to be observed in stellar atmospheres. It shown that very heavy elements may be created in a cosmological r-process; the neutron exposure in the neutron-rich regions is large enough for the Ne-22 to trigger a catastrophic r-process runaway in which the quantity of heavy elements doubles in much less than an expansion time due to fission cycling. A primordial abundance of r-process elements is predicted to appear as an excess of rare earth elements in extremely metal-poor stars.

Applegate, J. H.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Gravitational wave and CMB probes of axion kination

Rotations of an axion field in field space provide a natural origin for an era of kination domination, where the energy density is dominated by the kinetic term of the axion field, preceded by an early era of matter domination. Remarkably, no entropy is produced at the end of matter domination and hence these eras of matter and kination domination may occur even after Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We derive constraints on these eras from both the cosmic microwave background and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We investigate how this cosmological scenario affects the spectrum of possible primordial gravitational waves and find that the spectrum features a triangular peak. We discuss how future observations of gravitational waves can probe the viable parameter space, including regions that produce axion dark matter by the kinetic misalignment mechanism or the baryon asymmetry by axiogenesis. For QCD axion dark matter produced by the kinetic misalignment mechanism, a modification to the inflationary gravitational wave spectrum occurs above 0.01 Hz and, for high values of the energy scale of inflation, the prospects for discovery are good. We briefly comment on implications for structure formation of the universe.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗