Could Cold Fusion Solve Some Problems of the Standard View about Nucleosynthesis?

Abstract

The theory of nucleosynthesis involves several uncertainties and it is interesting to see whether interstellar cold fusion could provide mechanisms allowing improved understanding of the observed abundances. There are several problems: D abundance is too low unless one assumes the presence of dark matter/energy during Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN); there are two Lithium anomalies; there is evidence for the synthesis of boron during BBN; for large redshifts the observed metallic abundances are lower than predicted. The observed abundances of light nuclei are higher than predicted and require that so called cosmic ray spallation producing them via nuclear fission induced by cosmic rays. The understanding of abundances of nuclei heavier than Fe requires supernova nucleosynthesis: The problem is that supernova 1987A did not provide support for the r-process. The idea of dark cold fusion could be taken more seriously, if it helped to improve the recent view about nucleosynthesis. In the sequel, I try to develop a systematic view about how cold fusion could help. I take as a starting point the model for cold dark fusion discussed in earlier article. This model could be seen as generalization of supernova nucleosynthesis in which dark variant of neutron and proton capture gives rise to more massive isotopes. Also a variant allowing the capture of dark alpha particle can be considered.