Fine Tuning of Basic Forces through the Existence of Carbon-Based Life

The bulk of the carbon in our universe is produced in the triple-alpha process in helium-burning red giant stars. We calculated the change of the triple-alpha reaction rate in a microscopic twelve-nucleon model of the 12C nucleus and looked for the effects of minimal variations of the strengths of the underlying strong and Coulomb interactions. Stellar model calculations are performed using the alternative reaction rates. We show that outside a narrow window of 0.5% of the strength or range of the strong interaction the stellar production of carbon or oxygen is reduced by factors of 130 to 1000. Therefore, outside this window the existence of carbon-based life in our universe would be strongly disfavored. These anthropically allowed strengths of the strong and electromagnetic forces also constrain the sum of the light quark masses and the Higgs vacuum expectation value.