Effect of the neutron lifetime on processes in the early universe

Abstract

The influence of the neutron lifetime on the abundance of light elements produced during the primordial nucleosynthesis early in the birth of the Universe is considered. Among light elements, namely, D, ³He, ⁴He, and ⁷Li, ⁴He proves to be most sensitive to neutron lifetime τ_n. Astronomic data on the light element abundance also provide the best accuracy for ⁴He. The solution of a number of problems discussed in this paper requires improving the accuracy of observations for the ⁴He abundance and refining the value of τ_n.