Primordial nucleosynthesis bounds on the Brans-Dicke theory

A thorough calculation of light-element production in Brans-Dicke cosmologies is presented by taking into account the most general class of these models. The comparison of the outputs of our calculation with current observational data results in bounds on the allowed omega-values. Cosmological models where phi-R exp 3 approaches C which is not equal to 0 when R approaches 0 and high values of the expansion rate of the universe are ruled out by the primordial nucleosynthesis test. However, if C = 0, light-element production imposes less restrictive bounds on the parameter omega than the experiments in the weak field limit.