Kavli Affiliate: Michael Turner
| Summary:
Big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is a pillar of modern cosmology. It was the first major test of the hot big bang model, and today remains its earliest and most precise test. It all began with the trailblazing 1948 paper of Alpher, Bethe and Gamow, who proposed non-equilibrium nuclear processes in the early Universe and an early radiation-dominated phase to explain the abundances of all the chemical elements in the periodic table. While their neutron-capture model was deeply flawed, it initiated the path to the modern theory of BBN and the discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this paper I clarify the basic physics of BBN, adding some new insights, and describe how the modern theory developed. I finish with a discussion of the pre-discovery predictions of the temperature of CMB, including the missteps and the missed opportunities. The legacy of big bang nucleosynthesis is enormous, and it is yet another illustration of how foggy it can be at the frontiers of discovery.
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