Abstract
We point out that the existence of metastable, , negatively charged electroweak-scale particles () alters the predictions for lithium and other primordial elemental abundances for via the formation of bound states with nuclei during big bang nucleosynthesis. In particular, we show that the bound states of with helium, formed at temperatures of about , lead to the catalytic enhancement of production, which is 8 orders of magnitude more efficient than the standard channel. In particle physics models where subsequent decay of does not lead to large nonthermal big bang nucleosynthesis effects, this directly translates to the level of sensitivity to the number density of long-lived particles () relative to entropy of , which is one of the most stringent probes of electroweak scale remnants known to date.
- Received 1 July 2006
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.231301
©2007 American Physical Society