Cara Giovanetti (UC Berkeley) “: A hint for new physics from primordial deuterium”

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Abstract: Experts have been debating whether the standard cosmology prediction for primordial deuterium agrees with observation, with some finding agreement and others finding a mild tension (~2 sigma).  I will show that this disagreement has its roots not in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis theory or nuclear physics experiment, but instead in simple statistics. I will also introduce a new method to treat nuclear physics data using Gaussian processes to confirm independently that there is a mild tension.