Search for: All records

A bstract We present cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses as a function of the neutrino lifetime, in a framework in which neutrinos decay into dark radiation after becoming non-relativistic. We find that in this regime the cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) and (uncalibrated) luminosity distance to supernovae from the Pantheon catalog constrain the sum of neutrino masses ∑ m ν to obey ∑ m ν < 0 . 42 eV at (95% C.L.). While the bound has improved significantly as compared to the limits on the same scenario from Planck 2015, it still represents a significant relaxation of the constraints as compared to the stable neutrino case. We show that most of the improvement can be traced to the more precise measurements of low- ℓ polarization data in Planck 2018, which leads to tighter constraints on τ reio (and thereby on A s ), breaking the degeneracy arising from the effect of (large) neutrino masses on the amplitude of the CMB power spectrum. 

ABSTRACT Cold Dark Matter with cosmological constant (ΛCDM) cosmological models with early dark energy (EDE) have been proposed to resolve tensions between the Hubble constant $H_0=100\, h$ km ṡ−1Ṁpc−1 measured locally, giving h ≈ 0.73, and H0 deduced from Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) and other early-Universe measurements plus ΛCDM, giving h ≈ 0.67. EDE models do this by adding a scalar field that temporarily adds dark energy equal to about 10 per cent of the cosmological energy density at the end of the radiation-dominated era at redshift z ∼ 3500. Here, we compare linear and non-linear predictions of a Planck-normalized ΛCDM model including EDE giving h = 0.728 with those of standard Planck-normalized ΛCDM with h = 0.678. We find that non-linear evolution reduces the differences between power spectra of fluctuations at low redshifts. As a result, at z = 0 the halo mass functions on galactic scales are nearly the same, with differences only 1–2 per cent. However, the differences dramatically increase at high redshifts. The EDE model predicts 50 per cent more massive clusters at z = 1 and twice more galaxy-mass haloes at z = 4. Even greater increases in abundances of galaxy-mass haloes at higher redshifts may make it easier to reionize the universe with EDE. Predicted galaxy abundances and clustering will soon be tested by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations. Positions of baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAOs) and correlation functions differ by about 2 per cent between the models – an effect that is not washed out by non-linearities. Both standard ΛCDM and the EDE model studied here agree well with presently available acoustic-scale observations, but the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and Euclid measurements will provide stringent new tests.