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A precision calculation of the effective number of cosmological neutrinos

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arxiv astro-ph/0111408 v2 pith:2KKDJRQN submitted 2001-11-21 astro-ph hep-ph

classification astro-phhep-ph
keywords neutrinosneutrinonumberactiveadditionalcmbfastcosmologicaleffective
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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The neutrino energy density of the Universe can be conveniently parametrized in terms of the so-called effective number of neutrinos, N_nu^eff. This parameter enters in several cosmological observables. In particular it is an important input in those numerical codes, like CMBFAST, which are used to study the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy spectrum. By studying the neutrino decoupling with Boltzmann equations, one can show that this quantity differs from the number of massless neutrino species for an additional contribution due to a partial heating of neutrinos during the electron-positron annihilations, leading to non thermal features in their final distributions. In this paper we review the different results obtained in the literature and perform a new analysis which takes into account, in a fully consistent way, the QED corrections at finite temperature to the photon and e^+- plasma equation of state. The value found for three massless active neutrinos is N_nu^eff=3.0395, in perfect agreement with the recommended value used in CMBFAST, N_nu^eff=3.04. We also discuss the case of additional relativistic relics and massive active neutrinos.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

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  1. Beyond thermal approximations: Precise cosmological bounds on Axion-Like Particles

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  2. Bounds and detection of MeV-scale dark matter annihilation to neutrinos

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    Relic dark matter annihilation into neutrinos after neutrino decoupling adds a nonthermal contribution to the effective number of neutrino species, which can exclude large annihilation cross sections for MeV-scale dar...

  3. Joint probes of dark matter annihilation from neutrino detectors and CMB targets

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    Joint analysis of neutrino detectors and CMB observables can constrain dark matter annihilation into neutrinos for MeV-GeV masses.

  4. Probing Dark Sector Particles Coupling to Neutrinos with Double Beta Decay

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    Double beta decay experiments can constrain couplings of sub-MeV Majoron-like scalars to neutrinos at |a_ν| ≈ 2×10^{-6} through on- and off-shell production effects on the electron spectrum.

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