Lithium-7 abundance measured in the atmospheres of the oldest metal-poor stars (the Spite plateau) is systematically a factor of 3 to 4 LOWER than standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis predicts using the Planck CMB-derived baryon density (Spite 1982; Cyburt 2008; Fields 2014). The discrepancy has resisted resolution for over four decades.
The standard model assumes standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with the baryon-to-photon ratio inferred from CMB observations should match all light-element abundances. D/H and Y_p match well; Li-7 does not. Resolution within standard physics requires either modified BBN nuclear rates, stellar Li-depletion at unrealistically high efficiency, or new physics during the BBN epoch.
SCT replaces the hot-dense-center with a superluminal collision and the thermalized debris field that became our visible universe. The cascade of multi-stage thermalization terminated well before the BBN epoch (P40, around t ~ 1 second after the effective Big Bang). After the cascade ended, the universe evolved under standard physics from cascade-set initial conditions. Specifically, the Hubble expansion rate at T = 1 MeV in SCT matches the ΛCDM Hubble expansion rate at T = 1 MeV to extreme precision (1 part in 10³⁹), because both frameworks use the same standard nuclear physics + thermal equilibrium for the BBN epoch itself.
The consequence is that SCT BBN is functionally identical to ΛCDM BBN. Both frameworks predict the same primordial light-element abundances from the same nuclear-physics network operating under the same thermal history. The Li-7 problem in SCT is therefore SHARED with ΛCDM. It is not differentially resolved by the SCT framework.
This is one of the places where SCT must be honest about what it does NOT solve. The toggle from hot-dense-center to superluminal-collision-and-thermalized-debris-field changes the cosmogenesis story (no singular beginning, no inflation, dynamical Λ_eff replacing constant Λ), but it does not change the nuclear physics of the BBN epoch. The Li-7 anomaly therefore persists as an open shared problem between both frameworks. The resolution (if there is one) almost certainly lies in stellar-physics processes that destroy Li-7 over stellar lifetimes, in nuclear-reaction-rate uncertainties at low energies, or in systematic errors in the abundance measurements themselves. None of these resolutions is differentially favored by SCT vs. ΛCDM.
SCT honestly inherits this anomaly rather than papering it over. The catalog flags Li-7 as NOT RESOLVED in SCT. A shared open problem, not a SCT win. Future observational work and nuclear-physics laboratory measurements will eventually resolve the Li-7 question, and that resolution will apply equally to both cosmological frameworks.
NOT RESOLVED in SCT (shared open problem with ΛCDM). The Li-7 anomaly is not differentially explained by the SCT framework because SCT BBN is functionally identical to ΛCDM BBN (cascade terminated before BBN ensured standard thermal-equilibrium nuclear physics during the BBN epoch). Resolution must lie in stellar depletion, nuclear-reaction-rate uncertainties, or systematic measurement errors. Not in differential cosmological-model predictions.
Identification of a stellar-physics or nuclear-reaction-rate fix that resolves the Li-7 anomaly within the standard BBN framework would close the question for both SCT and ΛCDM equally. There is no SCT-specific falsifier here, because there is no SCT-specific resolution claim.