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Archidiacono, M., Giusarma, E., Melchiorri, A., & Mena, O. (2013). Neutrino and dark radiation properties in light of recent CMB observations. Phys. Rev. D, 87(10), 103519–10pp.
Abstract: Recent cosmic microwave background measurements at high multipoles from the South Pole Telescope and from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope seem to disagree in their conclusions for the neutrino and dark radiation properties. In this paper we set new bounds on the dark radiation and neutrino properties in different cosmological scenarios combining the ACT and SPT data with the nine-year data release of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP-9), baryon acoustic oscillation data, Hubble Telescope measurements of the Hubble constant, and supernovae Ia luminosity distance data. In the standard three massive neutrino case, the two high multipole probes give similar results if baryon acoustic oscillation data are removed from the analyses and Hubble Telescope measurements are also exploited. A similar result is obtained within a standard cosmology with N-eff massless neutrinos, although in this case the agreement between these two measurements is also improved when considering simultaneously baryon acoustic oscillation data and Hubble Space Telescope measurements. In the N-eff massive neutrino case the two high multipole probes give very different results regardless of the external data sets used in the combined analyses. When considering extended cosmological scenarios with a dark energy equation of state or with a running of the scalar spectral index, the evidence for neutrino masses found for the South Pole Telescope in the three neutrino scenario disappears for all the data combinations explored here. Again, adding Hubble Telescope data seems to improve the agreement between the two high multipole cosmic microwave background measurements considered here. In the case in which a dark radiation background with unknown clustering properties is also considered, SPT data seem to exclude the standard value for the dark radiation viscosity c(vis)(2) = 1/3 at the 2 sigma C.L., finding evidence for massive neutrinos only when combining SPT data with baryon acoustic oscillation measurements.
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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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Giusarma, E., Archidiacono, M., de Putter, R., Melchiorri, A., & Mena, O. (2012). Sterile neutrino models and nonminimal cosmologies. Phys. Rev. D, 85(8), 083522–9pp.
Abstract: Cosmological measurements are affected by the energy density of massive neutrinos. We extend here a recent analysis of current cosmological data to nonminimal cosmologies. Several possible scenarios are examined: a constant w not equal -1 dark energy equation of state, a nonflat universe, a time-varying dark energy component and coupled dark matter-dark energy universes or modified gravity scenarios. When considering cosmological data only, (3 + 2) massive neutrino models with similar to 0.5 eV sterile species are allowed at 95% confidence level. This scenario has been shown to reconcile reactor, LSND and MiniBooNE positive signals with null results from other searches. Big bang nucleosynthesis bounds could compromise the viability of (3 + 2) models if the two sterile species are fully thermalized states at decoupling.
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Archidiacono, M., Gariazzo, S., Giunti, C., Hannestad, S., & Tram, T. (2020). Sterile neutrino self-interactions: H-0 tension and short-baseline anomalies. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 12(12), 029–20pp.
Abstract: Sterile neutrinos with a mass in the eV range have been invoked as a possible explanation of a variety of short baseline (SBL) neutrino oscillation anomalies. However, if one considers neutrino oscillations between active and sterile neutrinos, such neutrinos would have been fully thermalised in the early universe, and would be therefore in strong conflict with cosmological bounds. In this study we first update cosmological bounds on the mass and energy density of eV-scale sterile neutrinos. We then perform an updated study of a previously proposed model in which the sterile neutrino couples to a new light pseudoscalar degree of freedom. Consistently with previous analyses, we find that the model provides a good fit to all cosmological data and allows the high value of H-0 measured in the local universe to be consistent with measurements of the cosmic microwave background. However, new high l polarisation data constrain the sterile neutrino mass to be less than approximately 1 eV in this scenario. Finally, we combine the cosmological bounds on the pseudoscalar model with a Bayesian inference analysis of SBL data and conclude that only a sterile mass in narrow ranges around 1 eV remains consistent with both cosmology and SBL data.
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