N16 — Deuterium abundance from $$-native $_B$
N16: Deuterium abundance from $$-native $_B$. quasar absorption systems.
Falsification Details
eta-B. deuterium!prediction pred:n16 D/H $= 2.52 10^-5$ (V.T241) from the $$-derived baryon-to-photon ratio. Observed: $(2.53 0.04) 10^-5$.
quasar absorption systems
ongoing, improving with 30m-class telescopes.
Context
N16: Prediction
eta-B.
D/H $= 2.52 × 10^-5$ (V.T241) from the $τ$-derived baryon-to-photon ratio. Observed: $(2.53 ± 0.04) × 10^-5$. Experiment: quasar absorption systems. Timeline: ongoing, improving with 30m-class telescopes.
Derivation Context
Using $η_B = (121/270)\,ι_τ^19 ≈ 6.041 × 10^-10$ as the sole input to the standard BBN nuclear network:
in comparison with the observed value $D/H_obs = (2.527 ± 0.030) × 10^-5$ (Cooke et al.\ 2018). The deviation is $+2.7%$ ($+2.3σ$). (Registry: V.T241, $τ$-effective, Wave 25.)
The slight D/H overshoot is physically expected: the $τ$-native $η_B$ is $1.03%$ below the Planck value, meaning fewer baryons per photon, hence less efficient deuterium destruction ($D + D$ and $D + p$ reactions), yielding a slightly higher residual D/H. The BBN sensitivity $d((D/H))/d(η_B) ≈ -1.6$ quantifies this anti-correlation.