He/H ratio for Cosmology: Accurate He recombination coefficients including fine structure and singlet-triplet mixing

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Precision measurement of the primordial abundance of the light elements is one of the fundamental tests of the Big Bang. The primordial abundance of helium, Y p, the ratio of He to H by mass, is measured from emission lines that form during the recombination-decay process, He+ + e- -> He0(nL) + hν followed by radiative cascade. A definitive test of the Big Bang requires an accuracy of 1% or better. Y p is measured from ratios of intensities of He I and H I recombination lines in H II regions. The density ratio n(He+)/n( H+) is proportional to the observed line intensities. All previous studies of He I recombination coefficients have assumed that the triplets and singlets are distinct radiative cascade systems that communicate only through electron exchange collisions. Actually, certain large-angular-momentum levels have strongly mixed spin multiplicities, leading to conventional electric-dipole decays that act to mix the singlets and triplets. We present calculations of He I recombination coefficients at a temperature 10,000 K in "Case B" explicitly including fine structure in the helium transition rates and energies. Changes 1% or greater are observed in several important emission line intensities, and these changes may effect the deduced Y p by cosmologically significant amounts. This project is supported by the NSF and NASA through grants AST 0071180 and NAG5-8212.

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