Confirmation of High Deuterium Abundance in Quasar Absorbers

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Abstract
We present a new analysis of a Keck spectrum of Q0014+813, with a new model of the z = 3.32 absorbing cloud. We fit Lyman series absorption of the dominant H I components, including components identified with hydrogen and associated deuterium at two discrete velocities, with thermal line broadening of each species. The deuterium features are too narrow to be interlopers, and the good agreement in temperature and redshift with their hydrogen counterparts confirms the identification as deuterium. The abundance is measured to be D/H = (1.9 ± 0.5) × 10-4 and (1.9 ± 0.4) × 10-4 in the two components, with an independent lower limit of D/H > 1.3 × 10-4 for the sum, derived from the Lyman limit opacity. The impact on cosmological theory is briefly discussed.