Eur. Phys. J. C (2017) 77: 576
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5143-8

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Constraining f(T) teleparallel gravity by big bang nucleosynthesis

f(T) cosmology and BBN

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Pancini”, Università di Napoli “Federico II”, Complesso Universitario di Monte Sant’Angelo, Edificio G, Via Cinthia, 80126, Napoli, Italy
² Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) Sezione di Napoli, Complesso Universitario di Monte Sant’Angelo, Edificio G, Via Cinthia, 80126, Napoli, Italy
³ Gran Sasso Science Institute, Viale F. Crispi, 7, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica E.R. Cainaiello, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 84084, Fisciano, SA, Italy
⁵ INFN, Gruppo Collegato di Salerno, Sezione di Napoli, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 84084, Fisciano, SA, Italy
⁶ Department of Physics, National Technical University of Athens, Zografou Campus, 157 73, Athens, Greece
⁷ CASPER, Physics Department, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 76798-7310, USA

^* e-mail: lambiase@sa.infn.it

Received: 12 July 2017
Accepted: 13 August 2017
Published online: 31 August 2017

Abstract

We use Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) observational data on the primordial abundance of light elements to constrain f(T) gravity. The three most studied viable f(T) models, namely the power law, the exponential and the square-root exponential are considered, and the BBN bounds are adopted in order to extract constraints on their free parameters. For the power-law model, we find that the constraints are in agreement with those obtained using late-time cosmological data. For the exponential and the square-root exponential models, we show that for reliable regions of parameters space they always satisfy the BBN bounds. We conclude that viable f(T) models can successfully satisfy the BBN constraints.