IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v385y1997i6612d10.1038_385137a0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A high deuterium abundance in the early Universe

Author

Listed:
  • Antoinette Songaila

    (University of Hawaii)

  • E. Joseph Wampler

    (National Astronomical Observatory)

  • Lennox L. Cowie

    (University of Hawaii)

Abstract

INTERGALACTIC gas clouds at high redshifts have element abundances that are close to primordial. The ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H) within such clouds—which is determined from absorption lines in the spectra of more distant quasars that lie along the same line of sight—provides the best estimate of the density of baryons (ΩB) in the Universe. Previous estimates of D/H in the early Universe have yielded values that differ by about an order of magnitude1–7, with the lower values6,7 implying a high density of baryons that may be difficult to reconcile with both estimates of the primordial abundances of other light elements (especially 4He) and the known number of light neutrinos8–10. The accuracy of such D/H determinations is heavily dependent on the inferred column density of neutral hydrogen in the absorbing clouds. Here we report an independent measurement of the neutral hydrogen column density in the cloud towards the quasar Q1937 – 1009, for which one of the low D/H values was derived6. Our measurement requires a substantial revision to the D/H value reported previously; we obtain a lower limit of D/H > 4 × 10−5 for this cloud, which implies ΩB

Suggested Citation

  • Antoinette Songaila & E. Joseph Wampler & Lennox L. Cowie, 1997. "A high deuterium abundance in the early Universe," Nature, Nature, vol. 385(6612), pages 137-139, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6612:d:10.1038_385137a0
    DOI: 10.1038/385137a0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/385137a0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/385137a0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6612:d:10.1038_385137a0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.