Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
A critical review is given of the current status of cosmological nucleosynthesis. In the framework of the Standard Model with 3 types of relativistic neutrinos, the baryon-to-photon ratio, η, corresponding to the inferred primordial abundances of deuterium and helium-4 is consistent with the independent determination of η from observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. However the primordial abundance of lithium-7 inferred from observations is significantly below its expected value. Taking systematic uncertainties in the abundance estimates into account, there is overall concordance in the range η= (5. 7-6. 7) 10^-10 at 95% CL (corresponding to a cosmological baryon density ΩB h² = 0. 021 - 0. 025). The D and He-4 abundances, when combined with the CMB determination of η, provide the bound N_ν=3. 28 0. 28 on the effective number of neutrino species. Other constraints on new physics are discussed briefly.
Fields et al. (Wed,) studied this question.