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Gariazzo, S., & Mena, O. (2019). Cosmology-marginalized approaches in Bayesian model comparison: The neutrino mass as a case study. Phys. Rev. D, 99(2), 021301–6pp.
Abstract: We propose here a novel method which singles out the a priori unavoidable dependence on the underlying cosmological model when extracting parameter constraints, providing robust limits which only depend on the considered dataset. Interestingly, when dealing with several possible cosmologies and interpreting the Bayesian preference in terms of the Gaussian statistical evidence, the preferred model is much less favored than when only two cases are compared. As a working example, we apply our approach to the cosmological neutrino mass bounds, which play a fundamental role not only in establishing the contribution of relic neutrinos to the dark matter of the Universe but also in the planning of future experimental searches of the neutrino character and of the neutrino mass ordering.
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Gariazzo, S., Archidiacono, M., de Salas, P. F., Mena, O., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2018). Neutrino masses and their ordering: global data, priors and models. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 011–22pp.
Abstract: We present a full Bayesian analysis of the combination of current neutrino oscillation, neutrinoless double beta decay and Cosmic Microwave Background observations. Our major goal is to carefully investigate the possibility to single out one neutrino mass ordering, namely Normal Ordering or Inverted Ordering, with current data. Two possible parametrizations (three neutrino masses versus the lightest neutrino mass plus the two oscillation mass splittings) and priors (linear versus logarithmic) are exhaustively examined. We find that the preference for NO is only driven by neutrino oscillation data. Moreover, the values of the Bayes factor indicate that the evidence for NO is strong only when the scan is performed over the three neutrino masses with logarithmic priors; for every other combination of parameterization and prior, the preference for NO is only weak. As a by-product of our Bayesian analyses, we are able to (a) compare the Bayesian bounds on the neutrino mixing parameters to those obtained by means of frequentist approaches, finding a very good agreement; (b) determine that the lightest neutrino mass plus the two mass splittings parametrization, motivated by the physical observables, is strongly preferred over the three neutrino mass eigenstates scan and (c) find that logarithmic priors guarantee a weakly-to-moderately more efficient sampling of the parameter space. These results establish the optimal strategy to successfully explore the neutrino parameter space, based on the use of the oscillation mass splittings and a logarithmic prior on the lightest neutrino mass, when combining neutrino oscillation data with cosmology and neutrinoless double beta decay. We also show that the limits on the total neutrino mass Sigma m(nu) can change dramatically when moving from one prior to the other. These results have profound implications for future studies on the neutrino mass ordering, as they crucially state the need for self-consistent analyses which explore the best parametrization and priors, without combining results that involve different assumptions.
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Diamanti, R., Ando, S., Gariazzo, S., Mena, O., & Weniger, C. (2017). Cold dark matter plus not-so-clumpy dark relics. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 008–17pp.
Abstract: Various particle physics models suggest that, besides the (nearly) cold dark matter that accounts for current observations, additional but sub-dominant dark relics might exist. These could be warm, hot, or even contribute as dark radiation. We present here a comprehensive study of two-component dark matter scenarios, where the first component is assumed to be cold, and the second is a non-cold thermal relic. Considering the cases where the non-cold dark matter species could be either a fermion or a boson, we derive consistent upper limits on the non-cold dark relic energy density for a very large range of velocity dispersions, covering the entire range from dark radiation to cold dark matter. To this end, we employ the latest Planck Cosmic Microwave Background data, the recent BOSS DR11 and other Baryon Acoustic Oscillation measurements, and also constraints on the number of Milky Way satellites, the latter of which provides a measure of the suppression of the matter power spectrum at the smallest scales due to the free-streaming of the non-cold dark matter component. We present the results on the fraction f(ncdm) of non-cold dark matter with respect to the total dark matter for different ranges of the non-cold dark matter masses. We find that the 2 sigma limits for non-cold dark matter particles with masses in the range 1-10 keV are f(ncdm) <= 0.29 (0.23) for fermions (bosons), and for masses in the 10-100 keV range they are f(ncdm) <= 0.43 (0.45), respectively.
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Di Valentino, E., Gariazzo, S., Giunti, C., Mena, O., Pan, S., & Yang, W. Q. (2022). Minimal dark energy: Key to sterile neutrino and Hubble constant tensions? Phys. Rev. D, 105(10), 103511–15pp.
Abstract: Minimal dark energy models, described by the same number of free parameters of the standard cosmological model with cold dark matter plus a cosmological constant to parametrize the dark energy component, constitute very appealing scenarios which may solve long-standing, pending tensions. On the one hand, they alleviate significantly the tension between cosmological observations and the presence of one sterile neutrino motivated by the short-baseline anomalies: we obtain a 95% CL cosmological bound on the mass of a fully thermalized fourth sterile neutrino (N-eff = 4) equal to m(s) < 0.65(1.3) eV within the Phenomenologically Emergent Dark Energy (PEDE) and Vacuum Metamorphosis (VM) scenarios under consideration. Interestingly, these limits are in agreement with the observations at short-baseline experiments, and the PEDE scenario is favored with respect to the Lambda CDM case when the full data combination is considered. On the other hand, the Hubble tension is satisfactorily solved in almost all the minimal dark energy schemes explored here. These phenomenological scenarios may therefore shed light on differences arising from near and far Universe probes, and also on discrepancies between cosmological and laboratory sterile neutrino searches.
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Di Valentino, E., Gariazzo, S., & Mena, O. (2022). Model marginalized constraints on neutrino properties from cosmology. Phys. Rev. D, 106(4), 043540–9pp.
Abstract: We present robust, model-marginalized limits on both the total neutrino mass (E m1,) and abundances (Neff) to minimize the role of parametrizations, priors and models when extracting neutrino properties from cosmology. The cosmological observations we consider are cosmic microwave background temperature fluctuation and polarization measurements, supernovae Ia luminosity distances, baryon acoustic oscillation observations and determinations of the growth rate parameter from the Data Release 16 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. The degenerate neutrino mass spectrum (which implies the prior sigma m(1), > 0) is weakly or moderately preferred over the normal and inverted hierarchy possibilities, which imply the priors sigma m(1), > 0.06 and sigma m(1), > 0.1 eV respectively. Concerning the underlying cosmological model, the ACDM minimal scenario is almost always strongly preferred over the possible extensions explored here. The most constraining 95% CL bound on the total neutrino mass in the ACDM + sigma m(1), picture is sigma m(1), < 0.087 eV. The parameter N-eff is restricted to 3.08 +/- 0.17 (68% CL) in the ACDM + Neff model. These limits barely change when considering the ACDM + sigma m(1), + Neff scenario. Given the robustness and the strong constraining power of the cosmological measurements employed here, the model -marginalized posteriors obtained considering a large spectra of nonminimal cosmologies are very close to the previous bounds, obtained within the ACDM framework in the degenerate neutrino mass spectrum. Future cosmological measurements may improve the current Bayesian evidence favoring the degenerate neutrino mass spectra, challenging therefore the consistency between cosmological neutrino mass bounds and oscillation neutrino measurements, and potentially suggesting a more complicated cosmological model and/or neutrino sector.
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