Constraining Weyl-type gravity with big bang nucleosynthesis
Phys. Rev. D 111, 124049 – Published 25 June, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vvrp-dtfg
Abstract
The Weyl-type modified gravity theory is an extension of the and theories, where is the trace of the matter energy-momentum tensor, and the scalar nonmetricity is represented in its standard Weyl form, which is fully determined by a vector field . The theory provides a solid explanation of the observational data and the evolution of the late-time Universe, offering a geometric explanation of the dark energy. In this work, we investigate the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) constraints on several Weyl-type gravity models. We analyze in detail three distinct cosmological models, each corresponding to a specific choice of the functional form of . The first model adopts a simple linear additive structure in and , the second model is multiplicative in and , while the third is additive in and the exponential of . For each model, we consider first the cosmological evolution in the radiation dominated era, and then we determine the constraints on the model parameters from the primordial abundances of the light element, helium-4, deuterium, and lithium-7. The abundances of helium-4 and deuterium agree with theoretical predictions, however, the lithium problem, even slightly alleviated, still persists for the considered Weyl-type models. Generally, these models satisfy the BBN constraints, and thus they represent viable cosmologies describing the entire dynamical timescale of the evolution of the Universe.