# Untitled Document

A Java Calculator of Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

Luis Mendoza and Craig J. Hogan, University of Washington

Abstract

A simple Java applet is presented which allows quick and easy computation and plotting of the predictions of light element abundances in SBBN, including errors in the predictions propagated from input reaction rates correlated and calibrated via Monte Carlo. The applet, which requires Java 1.1-compatible browsers, can be found at

http://www.astro.washington.edu/research/bbn/

Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis refers to an exceptionally simple and beautiful model of the early universe. Matter and radiation are spatially uniform and the expansion is controlled by known fields with negligible chemical potentials, so the dynamics of the expansion and density as a function of time and temperature is determined by “just physics” with no external parameters. The production of light elements depends on one parameter, the small baryon excess characterised by the baryon-to-photon ratio $`\eta `$. Numerical integration of the reaction network yields predictions for light element abundances with “theoretical errors” dominated by the experimental errors in the input physics such as nuclear reaction rates. The error matrix for SBBN has been computed by Fiorentini et al. (Phys. Rev. D58,1998; astro-ph/9803177) by Monte Carlo techniques.

For many years SBBN theory and observation were mainly compared by the theorists. Integrations using updated rates and techniques were used to make state-of-the-art predictions and these were then compared with a collection of disparate observational data. Many reviews of this kind successively refined the predictions and the arguments concerning the post-big-bang processing of the elements (see reviews by S. Sarkar, Rep. Prog. Phys. 59, 1493, 1996, and D. Schramm and M. S. Turner, Rev. Mod. Phys. (Colloquia) 70, 303, 1998). The theoretical errors are no longer negligible compared with the observational errors so correct statistical comparison requires handling all of the errors at the same time, forcing the theorists to interpret observers’ error budgets or vice versa. With theoretical predictions and errors now stable, it makes sense to empower the observers to do the comparison.

This applet provides easy access to the precise predictions of SBBN including calibrated errors, as described by Fiorentini et al. (1998). This version (1.1) includes the predictions and errors for deuterium, helium-3, helium-4, and lithium-7 abundances. It will be useful in using data on each abundance (with errors) to set statistical limits on $`\eta `$, or to make predictions for abundances from other estimates of $`\eta `$ (e.g., M. Fukugita, C. J. Hogan and P. J. E. Peebles, ApJ 503, 518, 1998). Future versions will allow statistical concordance tests of SBBN and estimates of $`\eta `$ using more than one abundance datum, as well as allowing changes in the input reaction rates and errors.