Elsevier

Astroparticle Physics

Volume 63, 15 March 2015, Pages 66-80
Astroparticle Physics

Neutrino physics from the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.astropartphys.2014.05.014Get rights and content

Abstract

This is a report on the status and prospects of the quantification of neutrino properties through the cosmological neutrino background for the Cosmic Frontier of the Division of Particles and Fields Community Summer Study long-term planning exercise. Experiments planned and underway are prepared to study the cosmological neutrino background in detail via its influence on distance-redshift relations and the growth of structure. The program for the next decade described in this document, including upcoming spectroscopic galaxy surveys eBOSS and DESI and a new Stage-IV CMB polarization experiment CMB-S4, will achieve σ(σmν) = 16 meV and σ(Neff) = 0.020. Such a mass measurement will produce a high significance detection of non-zero σmν, whose lower bound derived from atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillation data is about 58 meV. If neutrinos have a minimal normal mass hierarchy, this measurement will definitively rule out the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy, shedding light on one of the most puzzling aspects of the Standard Model of particle physics — the origin of mass. This precise a measurement of Neff will allow for high sensitivity to any light and dark degrees of freedom produced in the big bang and a precision test of the standard cosmological model prediction that Neff=3.046.

Section snippets

Executive summary

The cosmological background of neutrinos thermally produced in the big bang has been definitively (albeit indirectly) detected. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) alone have led to a constraint on the effective number of neutrino species of Neff=3.36±0.34 Ade et al. [1], a value 10σ away from zero and consistent with expectations. Experiments planned and underway are prepared to study this background in detail via its influence on distance-redshift relations and the growth of

Forecast sensitivity to Neff and Σmν

In this section, we present forecast sensitivity to cosmic neutrinos from future CMB and LSS experiments. Various complementary probes of neutrino mass are surveyed. However, we highlight a few methods considered to be least sensitive to systematic effects: an arcminute-scale CMB polarization survey from the Stage-IV CMB experiment CMB-S4 (described below and in Appendix A), galaxy clustering, and cosmic shear. The exact forecast of uncertainty depends on the cosmology and priors assumed. Our

Theoretical priors

The goal of constraining and potentially detecting neutrino mass and neutrino number density cosmologically is based within a rigorously constrained and well-tested model. However, that model has some inherent theoretical priors and simplifying assumptions. Almost all of the constraints on neutrino mass discussed here and in the literature are constraints on neutrinos as an extension to the standard cosmological model, minimally described by six parameters, but sometimes extended to up to 10

Conclusions

The experimental quantification of the cosmological neutrino background has achieved the robust detection of the neutrino background energy density through its effects on the CMB and LSS, and the measures of properties of neutrinos in the cosmological background have achieved unprecedented precision and accuracy. These measures compete in precision with laboratory probes of neutrino number and mass, albeit with the theoretical priors discussed in Section 3.1. The current generation of Planck

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