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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Many speculative theories of fundamental physics suggest that fundamentals constants of the Standard Model may vary over cosmological time scales. The formation of light nuclei in the Early Universe is an ideal test for these speculations since i) occurred early in the history of the Universe and ii) is understood at a fair level of precision. We study the constraints imposed by the observation of light elements abundances on the possible variation of quark masses. For that we have to track the effect of a change in quark masses in several nuclear quantities as masses, decay rates and cross sections. In order to do without introducing a lot of model dependence we rely on a combination of lattice QCD and a variety of effective field theories appropriate to different observables and energy regimes. We also discuss related topics as limits on the variation of the Higgs field expectation value imposed by BBN.
Host: Ivan Vitev, T-2: NUC & PARTICLE PHYS, ASTROPHYS & COSMOLOGY