BBN catalysis by doubly charged particles

We consider primordial nucleosynthesis in the presence of hypothetical quasi-stable doubly charged particles. Existence of X ^- with macroscopic lifetimes will lead to the formation of its bound states with ⁴He and other light elements, significantly facilitating the subsequent formation of lithium nuclei. From observational constraints on maximum allowable amount of lithium, that we update in this work, we derive strong constraints on the abundance and lifetime of X ^-. In a likely cosmological freeze-out scenario with temperatures initially exceeding the mass of X ^-, the BBN constrains the lifetime of these particles to be less than about 100 seconds. For parametrically long lifetimes, lithium abundance data constrain X ^- abundance to be less than 10^-9 relative to protons, regardless of whether these particles decay or remain stable. Stable particles could saturate the dark matter density only if their mass is comparable to or in excess of 10¹⁰ GeV, and most of X ^- will be found in bound states with beryllium nuclei, so that chemically they would appear as abnormally heavy helium isotopes.