PRIMORDIAL NUCLEOSYNTHESIS CONSTRAINTS ON NEUTRINO DEGENERACY
Based on the work by Kang and Steigman, I review the effects of neutrino degeneracy on big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Since the electron-neutrino degeneracy and the non-electron-neutrino degeneracy play a different role in the synthesis of the light elements ( D , 3 He , 4 He , 7 Li ), besides the baryon asymmetry (the nucleon-to-photon ratio; η ≡ nB/nγ) there are two additional free parameters in our scenario of degenerate BBN. An extended range of these parameters has been explored. It is shown that at a given η value, the agreement of the predicted primordial abundances of the light elements with those observationally inferred abundances restricts the permitted range of neutrino degeneracies, particularly the electron-neutrino degeneracy. Furthermore, we find that a large baryon density, even baryon-dominated, critical density (ΩB=1) Universe successfully provides the consistency between the predicted and observed abundances of all the light elements if neutrinos are degenerate enough. For an ΩB=1 Universe, for example, η10=80 is permitted if the electron-neutrino degeneracy and the expansion rate due to the non-electron-neutrino degeneracies fall in the ranges 1.2 ≲ ξνe ≲ 1.5, 17 ≲ S (ξνμ,τ) ≲ 33, respectively.