What is cosmological lithium problem and why is it worth noting in astrophysics?

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What is cosmological lithium problem and why is it worth noting in astrophysics?

In: Physics

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The cosmological lithium problem is the fact that old stars contain less lithium than the theory of “primordial nucleosynthesis” (the theory of how atoms were created in the first minutes after the big bang) would predict. According to this we’d expect 2-3 times more Lithium.

For Hydrogen, Helium and Deuterium this theory predicts the amounts we actually measured in stars very precisely. But Lithium is far off.

So either the theory has some principle problem, or (more likely) there is an additional mechanism that got rid of the lithium in some nuclear process (or prevented it’s creation)