Oldengott, I. M., Barenboim, G., Kahlen, S., Salvado, J., & Schwarz, D. J. (2019). How to relax the cosmological neutrino mass bound. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 049–18pp.
Abstract: We study the impact of non-standard momentum distributions of cosmic neutrinos on the anisotropy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background and the matter power spectrum of the large scale structure. We show that the neutrino distribution has almost no unique observable imprint, as it is almost entirely degenerate with the effective number of neutrino flavours, N-eff, and the neutrino mass, m(nu). Performing a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis with current cosmological data, we demonstrate that the neutrino mass bound heavily depends on the assumed momentum distribution of relic neutrinos. The message of this work is simple and has to our knowledge not been pointed out clearly before: cosmology allows that neutrinos have larger masses if their average momentum is larger than that of a perfectly thermal distribution. Here we provide an example in which the mass limits are relaxed by a factor of two.
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Bennett, J. J., Buldgen, G., de Salas, P. F., Drewes, M., Gariazzo, S., Pastor, S., et al. (2021). Towards a precision calculation of the effective number of neutrinos N-eff in the Standard Model. Part II. Neutrino decoupling in the presence of flavour oscillations and finite-temperature QED. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 073–33pp.
Abstract: We present in this work a new calculation of the standard-model benchmark value for the effective number of neutrinos, N-eff(SM), that quantifies the cosmological neutrinoto-photon energy densities. The calculation takes into account neutrino flavour oscillations, finite-temperature effects in the quantum electrodynamics plasma to O(e(3)), where e is the elementary electric charge, and a full evaluation of the neutrino-neutrino collision integral. We provide furthermore a detailed assessment of the uncertainties in the benchmark N(eff)(SM )value, through testing the value's dependence on (i) optional approximate modelling of the weak collision integrals, (ii) measurement errors in the physical parameters of the weak sector, and (iii) numerical convergence, particularly in relation to momentum discretisation. Our new, recommended standard-model benchmark is N-eff(SM) 3.0440 +/- 0.0002, where the nominal uncertainty is attributed predominantly to errors incurred in the numerical solution procedure (vertical bar delta N-eff vertical bar similar to 10(-4)), augmented by measurement errors in the solar mixing angle sin(2) theta(12) (vertical bar delta N-eff vertical bar similar to 10(-4)).
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Jimenez, R., Kitching, T., Pena-Garay, C., & Verde, L. (2010). Can we measure the neutrino mass hierarchy in the sky? J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 035–14pp.
Abstract: Cosmological probes are steadily reducing the total neutrino mass window, resulting in constraints on the neutrino-mass degeneracy as the most significant outcome. In this work we explore the discovery potential of cosmological probes to constrain the neutrino hierarchy, and point out some subtleties that could yield spurious claims of detection. This has an important implication for next generation of double beta decay experiments, that will be able to achieve a positive signal in the case of degenerate or inverted hierarchy of Majorana neutrinos. We find that cosmological experiments that nearly cover the whole sky could in principle distinguish the neutrino hierarchy by yielding 'substantial' evidence for one scenario over the another, via precise measurements of the shape of the matter power spectrum from large scale structure and weak gravitational lensing.
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Villaescusa-Navarro, F., Miralda-Escude, J., Pena-Garay, C., & Quilis, V. (2011). Neutrino halos in clusters of galaxies and their weak lensing signature. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 027–14pp.
Abstract: We study whether non-linear gravitational effects of relic neutrinos on the development of clustering and large-scale structure may be observable by weak gravitational lensing. We compute the density profile of relic massive neutrinos in a spherical model of a cluster of galaxies, for several neutrino mass schemes and cluster masses. Relic neutrinos add a small perturbation to the mass profile, making it more extended in the outer parts. In principle, this non-linear neutrino perturbation is detectable in an all-sky weak lensing survey such as EUCLID by averaging the shear profile of a large fraction of the visible massive clusters in the universe, or from its signature in the general weak lensing power spectrum or its cross-spectrum with galaxies. However, correctly modeling the distribution of mass in baryons and cold dark matter and suppressing any systematic errors to the accuracy required for detecting this neutrino perturbation is severely challenging.
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Farzan, Y., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2014). Dips in the diffuse supernova neutrino background. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 014–21pp.
Abstract: Scalar (fermion) dark matter with mass in the MeV range coupled to ordinary neutrinos and another fermion (scalar) is motivated by scenarios that establish a link between radiatively generated neutrino masses and the dark matter relic density. With such a coupling, cosmic supernova neutrinos, on their way to us, could resonantly interact with the background (lark matter particles, giving rise to a dip in their redshift-integrated spectra. Current and future neutrino detectors, such as Super-Kamiokande. LENA and HyperKamiokande, could be able to detect this distortion.
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