Erkelenz Prize Colloquium: Helen Meyer (HISKP, Bonn University)

Anthropic Considerations in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

Abstract: How fine-tuned is our universe? To what extent can fundamental constants of physics like coupling constants and quark masses be varied, so that the history of our universe is not significantly altered? In the past three years my collaborators and I explored these questions in the framework of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). Using BBN as a laboratory to experiment with varying values of the electromagnetic coupling constant, the Higgs vacuum expectation value (focussing especially on effects on the nucleon mass) and the strange quark mass, we have derived constraints on variations of these parameters through comparing our simulations to known results for the primordial abundances of the lightest elements.

HISKP, HS, 0.023

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