Extragalactic Abundances of Hydrogen, Deuterium and Helium: New Steps, Missteps and Next Steps

Abstract

Estimates of the deuterium abundance in quasar absorbers are reviewed, including a brief account of incorrect claims published by the author and a brief review of the problem of hydrogen contamination. It is concluded that the primordial abundance may be universal with a value $(D/H)_P\approx 10^{-4}$, within about a factor of two, corresponding to $Ω_B h_{0.7}^2\approx 0.02$ or $η_{10}\approx 2.7$ in the Standard Big Bang. This agrees with current limits on primordial helium, $Y_P\le 0.243$, which are shown to be surprisingly insensitive to models of stellar enrichment. It also agrees with a tabulated sum of the total density of baryons in observed components. Much lower primordial deuterium ($\approx 2\times 10^{-5}$) is also possible but disagrees with currently estimated helium abundances; the larger baryon density in this case fits better with current models of the Lyman-$α$ forest but requires the bulk of the baryons to be in some currently uncounted form.