Nucleosynthesis in a Simmering Universe

Abstract

Primordial nucleosynthesis is considered a success story of the standard big bang (SBB) cosmology. The cosmological and elementary particle physics parameters are believed to be severely constrained by the requirement of correct abundances of light elements. We demonstrate nucleosynthesis in a class of models very different from SBB. In these models the cosmological scale factor increases linearly with time from the period during which nucleosynthesis occurs. It turns out that weak interactions remain in thermal equilibrium upto temperatures which are two orders of magnitude lower than the corresponding temperatures in SBB. Inverse beta decay of the proton can ensure adequate production of several light elements while producing primordial metallicity much higher than that produced in SBB. Other attractive features of these models are the absence of the horizon, flatness and initial singularity problems, consistency with the age of globular clusters and consistent relationships between redshift and luminosity distance, angular diameter distance and the galaxy number count.