A one per cent determination of the primordial deuterium abundance

Ryan Cooke, an astronomer from Durham University's Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, has recently reported a one per cent determination of the primordial deuterium abundance. Assuming the Standard Model of particle physics and cosmology, this measurement corresponds to a Universal density of baryons in good agreement with the recent measurement derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature fluctuations recorded by the Planck Satellite. The figure below shows seven high precision measurements of the deuterium to hydrogen ratio over a broad range of metallicity (blue symbols). The weighted mean of these seven independent measurements is shown by the red horizontal lines. The grey horizontal band shows the Planck measure of the baryon density, assuming the Standard Model.


Link to the original research paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11129

Contacts from CEA, Durham:

Ryan Cooke