Constraining spacetime noncommutativity with primordial nucleosynthesis

Abstract

We discuss a constraint on the scale $\Lambda_{\rm NC}$ of noncommutative (NC) gauge field theory arising from consideration of the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) of light elements. The propagation of neutrinos in the NC background described by an antisymmetric tensor $\theta^{\mu\nu}$ does result in a tree-level vector-like coupling to photons in a generation-independent manner, raising thus a possibility to have an appreciable contribution of three light right-handed (RH) fields to the energy density of the universe at nucleosynthesis time. Considering elastic scattering processes of the RH neutrinos off charged plasma constituents at a given cosmological epoch, we obtain for a conservative limit on an effective number of additional doublet neutrinos, $\Delta N_\nu =1$, a bound $\Lambda_{\rm NC} \stackrel{>}{\sim}$ 3 TeV. With a more stringent requirement, $\Delta N_\nu \lesssim 0.2$, the bound is considerably improved, $\Lambda_{\rm NC} \stackrel{>}{\sim} 10^3$ TeV. For our bounds the $\theta$-expansion of the NC action stays always meaningful, since the decoupling temperature of the RH species is perseveringly much less than the inferred bound for the scale of noncommutativity.