Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-89wxm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T13:09:12.981Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Cosmological nucleosynthesis: production of H and He

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2009

Igor Tolstikhin
Affiliation:
Kola Scientific Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences
Jan Kramers
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Get access

Summary

The expanding Universe and the Big Bang hypothesis

Friedmann (1922) was the first to postulate the model of an expanding Universe that originated in one explosion-like event. Soon afterwards Hubble (1929) discovered the relationship between the redshifts, due to the Doppler effect, in the spectra of distant stars, galaxies or galactic clusters and the distances to these objects: the further the object the larger the redshift, i.e. the greater the outward velocity (see Section 4.3). These relationships were considered as the first important confirmation of Friedmann's model, which is now generally accepted.

Later, further supporting evidence was found. The uniform He/H ratio in astrophysical objects with low metallicity, discussed in Section 3.1, was shown to be identical to that predicted by the Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) model. Further, important support for the Big Bang hypothesis was the observation of the cosmic microwave background radiation (Penzias and Wilson, 1965), which had been predicted by Gamow's Big Bang model. From recent high-precision satellite-based measurements of this radiation, several important cosmological parameters including the Hubble parameter and the primeval D/H ratio have been inferred, and these are in excellent agreement with the values actually observed (Spergel et al., 2003). Also, all independent estimates of the age of BBN and of the most ancient objects formed in the Galaxy are remarkably consistent (Sections 4.3 and 7.2).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Evolution of Matter
From the Big Bang to the Present Day
, pp. 44 - 51
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×