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# Cosmological Deuterium Production in Non-Standard Scenarios

## 1 Introduction

It was realized about twenty-five years ago (Epstein et al. 76, and references therein) that the deuterium isotope may play a very special role in cosmology as it seems extraordinarily difficult to produce it in abundance in environments other than that of a Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) freeze-out process. The importance of the deuterium isotope to cosmology has increased with the recently acquired ability of inferring comparatively precise D/H abundance ratios in high redshift quasar absorption line systems (QAS). It is now widely believed that deuterium is produced only during the BBN process and that the BBN process occurred in its standard version (to be specified below). In this case there exists one unique primordial D abundance independent of spatial location, and by observing D/H ratios in any one high-redshift system at low metallicity one may immediately infer the cosmic baryon density. The subject of this talk is to critically assess the viability of parts of this line of argument. In this spirit I discuss D production in some non-standard BBN scenarios in Section 2 and the possible production of D in astrophysical environments in Section 3. Section 4 contains a few comments on the possibility of significant stellar destruction of D in high-redshift, low-metallicity QAS whereas conclusions are drawn in Section 5. Due to the breadth of the subject I apologize in advance for not being able to address all the work which touches on this subject.

## 2 Production of deuterium in non-standard BBN models

Making definite theoretical predictions for the production of light-element abundances during a BBN freeze-out process involves making a number of assumptions. In the standard model of BBN these assumptions are, among others, a uniform baryon density, the existence of three, light, stable, and nondegenerate active neutrino species, as well as a a “clean” universe during the BBN era (no relic decaying particles, no pockets of antimatter, no defects, etc.). Furthermore, the validity of classical relativity and non-varying physical constants (e.g. fine structure constant $`\alpha `$, …) during BBN is assumed. There exists a vast literature (cf. Malaney & Mathews 93, Sarkar 96 for reviews) of modified BBN abundance predictions when any one of these assumptions is relaxed. It is typically not difficult to produce D in abundance as required by observations in many of these scenarios. Rather, non-standard scenarios are distinguished from standard ones by a different resulting abundance pattern in the synthesized elements D, 3He, 4He, and 7Li at varying cosmic baryon density. They may be often excluded by the combination of observational limits on all primordial light-elements abundances rather than the limit of D by itself. In the following I will briefly discuss three such non-standard BBN scenarios.

### 2.1 inhomogeneous BBN

Inhomogeneities in the baryon number may result from non-equilibrium processes in the early universe, for example, occurring during a putative first-order quantum-chromodynamics (QCD) phase transition. Due to the smallness of the cosmological horizon during the QCD epoch such scenarios would typically lead to small-scale inhomogeneity with the baryonic mass of individual fluctuations extremely small on an astrophysical reference scale. If the mass of individual fluctuations exceeds $`M_b{}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}_{}^{21}M_{}`$ dissipative processes in the early Universe do not erase the inhomogeneities before the onset of BBN (at cosmic temperature $`1`$MeV). A large number of authors have given abundance predictions for such inhomogeneous scenarios (cf. Kurki-Suonio & Sihvola 01, Jedamzik & Rehm 01, and references therein). Compared to a standard BBN at the same $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, baryon inhomogeneous models may result in the production of more D and less 4He. Considering observational limits on D and 4He only, larger $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2{}_{}{}^{<}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.05}`$ than in a standard BBN scenario ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.02`$; Burles et al. 01, O’Meara et al. 01) are observationally allowed. Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ is the fractional contribution of baryons to the critical density and $`h`$ is the Hubble constant in units of 100 km s-1Mpc-1. Nevertheless, 7Li/H ratios at least as large as $`5\times 10^{10}`$ \- $`10^9`$ are typical in these models and seem in conflict with the observationally inferred primordial 7Li abundance. On the other hand, even a standard BBN scenario at the preferred $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.02`$ (from observations of D/H in QAS) predicts 7Li/H $`3.8\times 10^{10}`$ in excess of the observationally inferred $`1.2\times 10^{10}1.7\times 10^{10}`$ from low-metallicity Pop II halo stars (cf. Bonifacio & Molaro 97, Ryan et al. 00). Thus, most inhomogeneous BBN models are observationally disfavored with the loophole of an as yet not complete understanding of possible 7Li astration in Pop II halo stars.

One may also envision inhomogeneity in the baryons on scales much larger, i.e. $`M_b{}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}_{}^{5}M_{}`$. Such large-scale inhomogeneity could be in principle generated during an inflationary period with a subsequent inhomogeneous baryogenesis process triggered by the inhomogeneities produced during inflation. The difference to a scenario of small-scale inhomogeneity is the importance of gravity, i.e. individual overdense fluctuations on scales larger than the baryonic Jeans mass ($`M_J^b10^5M_{}`$) collapse at comparatively high redshift $`z10^3`$ and may thereby “hide” their elevated primordial 4He and 7Li BBN yields. Such collapsing regions would either lock up their BBN yields in compact objects, or alternatively, undergo significant early star formation and metal enrichment such that they would never be employed to infer primordial abundance yields (which are typically inferred from low-metallicity environments). In this case the observed “primordial” abundances are from the BBN yields in underdense regions. It is interesting to note that such scenarios predict a primordial dispersion in D/H (Jedamzik & Fuller 1995) such that there exists no unique primordial D/H abundance. Note that, though claimed in the literature (Copi et al. 97) the author strongly disagrees on the conclusion that primordial D/H fluctuations automatically predict large, and observationally disallowed, fluctuations in the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Rather, probably the strongest argument against such scenarios is that there has to exist a cutoff in the fluctuation power for fluctuations with baryonic mass scale below the Jeans mass, as otherwise such non-collapsing sub-Jeans regions yield to an overproduction of 4He and 7Li (Kurki-Suonio et al. 97). Furthermore, such scenarios may (possibly) be inconsistent with the cosmic microwave background radiation due to early reionization and a general suppression of the CMBR (Hu & Sugiyama 94).

### 2.2 neutrino degeneracy

Cosmic lepton number may be associated with a chemical potential. In this case an asymmetry between neutrino- and antineutrino- number exists which, if large enough, affects the expansion rate during BBN and the n/p-ratio shortly before weak freeze-out. Such neutrino degenerate models have three additional free parameters as compared to a standard BBN, in particular, $`\xi _e=\mu _e/T_\nu `$, $`\xi _\mu `$, and $`\xi _\tau `$, where the $`\mu `$’s are chemical potentials for the three families of leptons ($`e`$, $`\mu `$, and $`\tau `$) and $`T_\nu `$ indicates neutrino temperature. It has been known for some time (e.g. Kang & Steigman 92; and references therein) that with the right “choice” of asymmetry parameters, light-element abundance yields may obey observational constraints for essentially arbitrary $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$. For given D/H$`3\times 10^5`$ the 4He abundance may be somewhat lower and 7Li is almost unchanged as compared to a standard BBN. Nevertheless, in order to achieve consistency with the observations over a wide range of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ not only have the chemical potentials to be orders of magnitude larger than that for baryon number, but chosen “asymmetrically”, i.e. $`\mu _e1`$ and $`\mu _{\mu ,\tau }10`$. Such an asymmetry may not necessarily survive the effects of neutrino oscillations in the very early Universe, particularly for neutrino mixing parameters consistent with the atmospheric neutrino anamoly and the large-angle mixing solution of the solar neutrino problem (Dolgov et al. 02). There are additional constraints on neutrino degenerate BBN from observations of the CMBR anisotropies. Though first results of such observations by Boomerang and Maxima favored $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2{}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.02}`$, possibly explained by neutrino degenerate BBN (Orito et al. 00), more recent data seems to be consistent with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.02`$. This recent data may also be used to derive more stringent constraints on cosmic neutrino degeneracy, possibly already ruling out most large $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ degenerate BBN scenarios (Hansen et al. 02).

Depending on the details of leptogenesis, it is possible that lepton chemical potentials are spatially varying. Inspired by varying claimed D/H abundances in low-metallicity QAS a number of years ago Dolgov & Pagel 99 have investigated such a putative scenario. Similarly to the case of large-scale baryon inhomogeneity, they found that such scenarios may lead to spatially varying primordial D abundances and are currently not necessarily ruled out by CMBR anisotropy measurements. Though both of these scenarios may seem exotic, they illustrate the importance of an unbiased stance of observers (and theoreticians) towards inferring and interpreting D/H ratios in high redshift QAS (cf. also Webb et al. 97). In particular, it is conceivable, though not necessarily likely, that there does not exist one unique primordial D abundance.

### 2.3 radiative decay of particles after BBN

Deuterium may be destroyed (or produced) shortly after a standard BBN epoch by the radiative decay of a long-lived relic particle (Lindley 80, Audouze et al. 85). In general, injection of energetic, electromagnetically, interacting particles by, for example, the decay of relic particles (i.e. gravitinos or moduli) or the evaporation of primordial black holes, leads to an electromagnetic cascade on the cosmic microwave background radiation. This rapid cascade results in the production of $`\gamma `$-rays with energies below $`E_\gamma {}_{}{}^{<}E_{\gamma }^{th}m_e^2/2E_{\mathrm{CMBR}}`$ and of spectrum and number only dependent on the injected electromagnetic energy but not the details of the injection mechanism. In the above $`m_e`$ is electron mass and $`E_{\mathrm{CMBR}}`$ is the typical energy of a CMBR photon at the injection redshift. For cosmic times $`t{}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}_{}^{4}`$s the threshold energy $`E_\gamma ^{th}`$ is above the binding energy of the D isotope $`E_\mathrm{D}^b2.2`$MeV such that deuterium photodisintegration may result. Such “decaying particle” scenarios result in a diminished deuterium abundance compared to a standard BBN at the same $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, whereas the 4He and 7Li abundances stay virtually unchanged. The required relic energy density $`\rho _{relic}`$ to destroy the BBN synthesized deuterium by a factor of order unity is $`\rho _{relic}/\rho _b1010^3`$, where $`\rho _b`$ is the baryonic mass density. The attraction of such models is the possibility of obtaining low primordial D and low primordial 4He abundances at the same time (Holtmann et al. 96). A standard BBN with D/H $`3\times 10^5`$ (at $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.02`$) predicts a 4He mass fraction of $`Y_p0.247`$. It is currently controversial if observational limits on the primordial 4He abundance permit a $`Y_p`$ as large. In contrast,“decaying particle” scenarios at lower $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ may accommodate both, low D and low 4He. Nevertheless, though it seems not difficult to produce the appropriate abundance of relics during the evolution of the early Universe, their decay time has to be somewhat tuned. This is because $`E_\gamma ^{th}`$ at $`t{}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}_{}^{6}`$s, exceeds $`20`$MeV, sufficient to photodisintegrate not only D but also 4He. Due to the larger abundance of 4He the latter reaction dominates and leads to production of copious amounts of 3He, D, and 6Li (cf. Section 3.1). Thus, deuterium may generally only be destroyed for electromagnetic energy injection in the time interval $`10^4\mathrm{s}{}_{}{}^{<}t{}_{}{}^{<}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}_{}^{6}`$s.

## 3 “Exotic” production sites of deuterium

It is common belief that there exist no deuterium production sites other than the BBN and that deuterium is only subject to stellar destruction. This statement not necessarily holds true though. Rather, there are no believable production sites which may produce deuterium in cosmological abundance without overproducing other isotopes, in particular, 3He, 6Li, and 7Li (Epstein et al. 76). Nevertheless, in the absence of (local) abundance determinations of these complimentary light-element isotopes (e.g. in QAS) it is, in principle, possible that deuterium in a given system has been locally enhanced by “exotic” mechanisms. With the advent of accurate deuterium determinations in QAS the study of such “exotic” processes has become feasible, and represents an opportunity. There exist principally three straightforward ways to produce deuterium: by the photodisintegration of 4He, by the spallation of 4He, as well as by the production of free neutrons and subsequent fusion of these neutrons on protons. In the following subsection each of these possibilities will be discussed.

### 3.1 production by 4He photodisintegration

Deuterium may be produced by the photodisintegration processes 4He($`\gamma `$,np)D and 4He($`\gamma `$,D)D whenever there exist $`\gamma `$-rays of energy exceeding $`E_\gamma {}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}23}`$MeV. This may occur cosmologically by the electromagnetic decay of relics of the early universe (cf. Section 2.3) after BBN (e.g. gravitinos; Audouze et al. 1985), or locally, close to an intense $`\gamma `$-ray source (e.g. accreting black holes Gnedin & Ostriker 92). Nevertheless, the processes 4He($`\gamma `$,p)3H and 4He($`\gamma `$,n)3He possible for $`E_\gamma {}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}20}`$MeV are typically $`10`$ times more likely. Thus 4He-photodisintegration yields an unacceptable large ratio 3He/D $`10`$ (Protheroe et al. 95, Sigl et al. 95), unless the $`\gamma `$-ray source is very hard with emission dominated above $`E_\gamma {}_{}{}^{>}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}100}`$MeV. In this latter case production ratios of 3He/D $`1`$ are possible. Nevertheless, quite independently of the hardness of the $`\gamma `$-ray source, significant overproduction of 6Li is almost guaranteed (Jedamzik 00). This is due to the produced 3He being nonthermal, partaking in fusion reactions on 4He to form 6Li. For example, a cosmological production of D/H $`3\times 10^5`$ by the decay of a relic after BBN is concomitant with the production of 6Li/H-ratios of the order of $`10^9`$. This should be compared to the 6Li/H $`7\times 10^{12}`$ as observed in low-metallicity halo stars (Cayrel et al. 99). Concerning the 3He/D ratio there exists a limit (under standard assumptions) derived from its presolar value $`({}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{He}/\mathrm{D})_{}1`$. Deuterium is only destroyed during stellar processing whereas 3He may be destroyed or produced in stars. This implies that the $`({}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{He}/\mathrm{D})`$ may only increase with time and immediately rules out any processes which yield large 3He/D-ratios (such as decaying relics after BBN) as the production mechanism for the deuterium inferred to exist at the formation of the solar system (Sigl et al. 95).

Nevertheless, in the absence of detailed abundance determinations of various isotopes (e.g. 3He and 6Li) in the same “astrophysical” object, one may not exclude the possibility that, for example, a particular QAS has been enhanced in D by 4He photodisintegration. Suppose there exists a putative population of powerful $`\gamma `$-ray sources, bursting at redshift $`z_b`$. The probability that a line of sight towards a quasar passes through the zone of significant deuterium enrichment by 4He photodisintegration may be written as (Jedamzik & Fuller 97): $`P10^9(1+z_b)(j_\gamma (z=0,E_{th}/(1+z_b))/10^5\mathrm{MeV}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1)`$, and is found very small unless, the bursts happen at large $`z_b`$. In the above expression $`j_\gamma (z=0,E_{th}/(1+z_b))`$ is the specific x/$`\gamma `$-ray intensity at the present epoch determined at the energy $`E_{th}/(1+z_b))`$ and $`10^5\mathrm{MeV}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{sr}^1`$ is the approximate present specific intensity at $`E_\gamma 20`$MeV. It may be concluded that local, or global, D-enrichment by 4He photodisintegration seems unlikely.

### 3.2 production by 4He spallation

Deuterium production may also result from the interactions of a cosmic ray population (energetic p, 4He with $``$ a few 100 MeV) with interstellar matter, by the spallation processes p(4He,3He)D and p(4He,p)2D. Nevertheless, efficient production can not result from (locally) known cosmic ray populations. The spallation production of D is accompanied by production of 3He as well as 6Li and 7Li via fusion of energetic cosmic ray 4He on interstellar 4He, i.e. 4He + 4He $``$ 6Li, 7Li, and 7Be. Unlike in the case of D production via 4He photodisintegration, resulting 3He/D ratios in spallation may be close to unity, at least for putative (low-energy) cosmic ray populations with a few 100 MeV energy per particle (Famiano et al. 01). Nevertheless, the Li-overproduction problem is even more severe in scenarios which envision to produce significant amounts of D by spallation processes. Overproduction of 7Li by orders of magnitude relative to the 7Li/H observed in low-metallicity halo stars belonging to the Spite-plateau (i.e. typical production of 7Li/H $`10^7`$ for D/H $`10^4`$), as well as overproduction of 6Li precludes spallation processes from explaining the origin of cosmological D and 3He (Epstein et al. 76). Moreover, in the presence of CNO nuclei spallation processes would also yield to significant production of 9Be, 10B, and 11B when CNO nuclei are present. Such processes are, in fact, believed to be the main source of these latter isotopes. In any case, local D enhancement due to spallation processes having occurred in an object are conceivable, as long as other light elements are not observed (or do not violate observational constraints). Recently, Famiano et al. 01 have proposed that the interactions of jets originating from active galactic nuclei with interstellar clouds may result in efficient local D enhancement. It is not known how common such processes are, and if such clouds would appear as objects where inference of primordial D/H is attempted, i.e. low-metallicity high redshift Lyman-limit- or damped Lyman-$`\alpha `$\- systems. It illustrates, however, that in interpreting inferred D/H abundances in QAS one should act with care as to not overcommit to the bias that the only production site for D is BBN.

### 3.3 production in an intense neutrino flux

Deuterium may be produced by creating free neutrons which subsequently capture on protons, i.e. p(n,$`\gamma `$)D. Neutron production may occur via the weak interaction $`\overline{\nu }_e+pn+e^+`$ in the presence of an intense anti-electron neutrino flux. In order to form deuterium, capture of the produced neutrons on protons has to occur before the neutrons decay $`np+e^{}+\overline{\nu }_e`$ with a half life of 10.26 min. Furthermore, D is very fragile and easily fuses to 3He at low temperatures, i.e. D(p,$`\gamma `$)3He, such that the environment in which this process could successfully occur has to be relatively cool or rapidly cooling down. The conditions for efficient production of D via such a mechanism, in particular, existence of an intense neutrino flux, rapid neutron capture, and inefficient D-burning, may be naturally met in supermassive stars of $`10^5M_{}`$, towards the end of their evolution and shortly before black hole formation (Woosley 77, Fuller & Shi 97). In fact, Woosley 77 proposed this mechanism for the origin of the bulk of the cosmologically observed deuterium. This, nevertheless, seems unlikely, as it entails a large fraction of baryons to be locked up in massive black holes at the present epoch. Other than leaving black hole remnants, a scenario where D is locally enhanced by supermassive stars is clean from a nucleosynthetic point of view. This is because no heavier elements than 4He are produced in an early population of $`10^5M_{}`$ stars. It seems, however, uncertain what fraction of the deuterium enriched zones may get expelled into the interstellar medium and what fraction ends in the black hole. If a large fraction gets expelled, then these ejecta may appear as deuterium enhanced Lyman-limit systems and are found with optical depth towards quasars of $`\tau 100\mathrm{\Omega }_{sms}(1+z)^3(R/1\mathrm{k}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{c})^2M_5^1`$ (Fuller & Shi 97). In the above, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{sms}`$ is the fractional contribution of baryons to the critical density which has been cycled through supermassive stars at redshift $`z`$, $`R`$ is the expansion radius of the deuterium enriched envelope, and $`M_5`$ is the stellar mass in units of $`10^5M_{}`$. It may be seen that even for fairly small $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{sms}0.01\%`$ the probability of any given line of sight towards a high redshift quasar to pass through such a system is appreciable. In view of the current lack of understanding of the origin of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, the above drawn possibility has, in fact, to be taken seriously and deserves further study.

## 4 A simple argument against deuterium depletion at high redshift?

Deuterium is easily destroyed in stars due to nuclear burning. In order to infer a primordial deuterium abundance it is thus important to constrain the degree of stellar D depletion which may have occurred in high redshift QAS. This is often done by inferring the abundance of one, or two, heavier isotopes (e.g. C and Si) and under the assumption of “normal”, average star formation having taken place in the QAS. Average stellar destruction of deuterium at high redshift is then expected to be small, as inferred from the chemical abundances of damped Lyman-$`\alpha `$ systems and under the assumption of an ordinary stellar initial mass function (IMF) as observed in our local neighborhood. Nevertheless, due to their distance not much is known about the QAS used to infer D abundances. It is thus conceivable that stochastic or anomalous stellar processing may result in significant destruction of deuterium in individual QAS. This could occur, for example, when the gas which is metal-enriched by the ejecta of massive stars is preferentially expelled (outflows), or when stars in only a very small mass range form (peaked IMF), where production of heavy isotopes is inefficient. A simple argument against such possibility was put forward by Jedamzik & Fuller 97. The universe is only $`2(3)`$Gyr old at redshift $`z3(2)`$. Stars with $`M1.5(1.35)M_{}`$ live about $`2(3)`$Gyr before they may return their D-depleted ejecta into the ISM. It is (see below, however) thought that stars of $`1.5(2)4M_{}`$ are efficient 12C producers, stars of $`48M_{}`$ are efficient 14N producers, and stars with $`M>8M_{}`$ are producing 28Si and 56Fe. This would imply that local stellar deuterium depletion has to be accompanied by enhancement of heavy elements at high redshift. Stars which have negligible production of isotopes heavier than 4He are either very low in mass $`{}_{}{}^{<}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.35}M_{}`$ and have not had time to return their D depleted ejecta into the interstellar medium at high redshift, or supermassive (cf. Section 3.3). Note that this constrain would be independent of the loophole of outflows since the same stars which deplete deuterium also produce the “metals”. However, recent investigation has cast doubt on the belief that intermediate mass zero-metallicity stars actually release their synthesized C and N in a “dredge-up” event (cf. Fujimoto et al. 00, Marigo et al. 01, Chieffi et al. 01). This has tempted Fields et al. (these proceedings) to speculate on the possibility of significant stellar D depletion in QAS and the concomitant production of an old white dwarf population. Clearly, the subject of metal enrichment by zero-metallicity stars deserves further study.

## 5 Conclusions

The bulk of the cosmological deuterium is believed to originate from the hot Big Bang. Decades of research have not revealed another viable alternative for its origin; alternatives are usually ruled out by overproduction of other isotopes (i.e. 3He, 6Li, and 7Li). Moreover, deuterium production may well have occurred in the simplest (standard) version of BBN, as there is currently no compelling evidence for a non-standard BBN scenario to be required. Nevertheless, I have attempted to illustrate that local, so far unknown, sources (sinks) of deuterium may exist. They imply the possibility of the occasional deuterium enhanced (or depleted) quasar absorption lines system. Particularly promising in this context may be the production of D by a generation of supermassive stars. Abundance determination of deuterium at extragalactic distances may therefore not only be used to derive the primordial deuterium abundance, but also, to discover or constrain other astrophysical processes in the Universe.

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