Contrary to a common argument that a small increase in the strength of the strong force would lead to destruction of all hydrogen in the big bang due to binding of the diproton and the dineutron with a catastrophic impact on life as we know it, we show that there is range of strong force coupling constant for which substantial amounts of hydrogen remain. The reason is that an increase in strong force strength leads to tighter binding of the deuteron, permitting nucleosynthesis to occur earlier in the big bang at higher temperature than in the standard big bang. Photodestruction of the less tightly bound diproton and dineutron delays their production to after the bulk of nucleosynthesis is complete. The decay of the diproton can, however, lead to relatively large abundances of deuterium.
Boost the strong force and you’ll eventually keep diprotons together but there’s a comfortable range in which they’ll decay as they do today, leaving plenty of hydrogen for star formation, along with a surplus of deuterium. Of course there would be some changes in the synthesis of other atoms but within a certain range, chemistry that makes life possible would go on. The same should apply to a universe with a weaker strong force. There may be less heavier atoms but there could still be the kind of chemistry which allows for stars and ultimately, some sort of life, even if it’s not the kind of life that currently exists. If there’s a range in which chemistry bound to result in organisms like us can happen, it would indicate that the universe is not so much fine tuned for us as we’re really an outcome of a number of possible chemical processes.
h/t to Attero Ignorantiam: Think Freely
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