ENHANCED HEAVY-ELEMENT FORMATION IN BARYON-INHOMOGENEOUS BIG-BANG MODELS

We show that primordial nucleosynthesis in baryon-inhomogeneous big-bang models can lead to significant heavy-element production while still satisfying all of the light-element abundance constraints including the low lithium abundance observed in Population 11 stars. The parameters which admit this solution arise naturally from the process of neutrino-induced expansion of baryon inhomogeneities prior to the epoch of nucleosynthesis. These solutions entail a small fraction of baryons (less than or similar to 2%) in very high density regions with local baryon to photon ratio eta(h) congruent-to 10(-4), while most baryons are at a baryon-to-photon ratio which optimizes the agreement with light-element abundances. This model would imply a unique signature of baryon inhomogeneities in the early universe, evidenced by the existence of primordial material containing heavy-element products of proton and alpha-burning reactions with an abundance of [Z] approximately -6 to -4.