Relic neutrino decoupling including flavour oscillations

Mangano, G.; Miele, Gennaro; Pastor, S.; Pinto, T.; Pisanti, O.; Serpico, Pasquale Dario

doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2005.09.041

Cited by 777 publications

(1,052 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(99 reference statements)

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“…Recent results reported by the Planck Collaboration [95] have strongly constrained the the presence of an excess ∆N eff above SM expectation: N SM eff = 3.046 [96]. Specifically, the 68% C.L.…”

Section: Constraints From Cosmologymentioning

confidence: 95%

Majorana dark matter through the Higgs portal under the vacuum stability lamppost

et al. 2015

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We study the vacuum stability of a minimal Higgs portal model in which the standard model (SM) particle spectrum is extended to include one complex scalar field and one Dirac fermion. These new fields are singlets under the SM gauge group and are charged under a global U (1) symmetry. Breaking of this U (1) symmetry results in a massless Goldstone boson, a massive CPeven scalar, and splits the Dirac fermion into two new mass-eigenstates, corresponding to Majorana fermions. The lightest Majorana fermion (w) is absolutely stable, providing a plausible dark matter (DM) candidate. We show that interactions between the Higgs sector and the lightest Majorana fermion which are strong enough to yield a thermal relic abundance consistent with observation can easily destabilize the electroweak vacuum or drive the theory into a non-perturbative regime at an energy scale well below the Planck mass. However, we also demonstrate that there is a region of the parameter space which develops a stable vacuum (up to the Planck scale), satisfies the relic abundance, and is in agreement with direct DM searches. Such an interesting region of the parameter space corresponds to DM masses 350 GeV mw 1 TeV. The region of interest is within reach of second generation DM direct detection experiments.

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Section: Constraints From Cosmologymentioning

confidence: 95%

Majorana dark matter through the Higgs portal under the vacuum stability lamppost

et al. 2015

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“…The work we describe here builds on the many previous studies of the evolution of the neutrino energy distribution functions in the early universe (see Refs. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and Appendix A). Higher precision in theoretical calculations of neutrino transport and nucleosynthesis in the early universe is warranted by recent and anticipated improvement in the precision of cosmological observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neutrino energy transport in weak decoupling and big bang nucleosynthesis

et al. 2016

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We calculate the evolution of the early universe through the epochs of weak decoupling, weak freeze-out and big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) by simultaneously coupling a full strong, electromagnetic, and weak nuclear reaction network with a multi-energy group Boltzmann neutrino energy transport scheme. The modular structure of our code provides the ability to dissect the relative contributions of each process responsible for evolving the dynamics of the early universe in the absence of neutrino flavor oscillations. Such an approach allows a detailed accounting of the evolution of the νe,νe, νµ,νµ, ντ ,ντ energy distribution functions alongside and self-consistently with the nuclear reactions and entropy/heat generation and flow between the neutrino and photon/electron/positron/baryon plasma components. This calculation reveals nonlinear feedback in the time evolution of neutrino distribution functions and plasma thermodynamic conditions (e.g., electron-positron pair densities), with implications for: the phasing between scale factor and plasma temperature; the neutron-to-proton ratio; light-element abundance histories; and the cosmological parameter N eff . We find that our approach of following the time development of neutrino spectral distortions and concomitant entropy production and extraction from the plasma results in changes in the computed value of the BBN deuterium yield. For example, for particular implementations of quantum corrections in plasma thermodynamics, our calculations show a 0.4% increase in deuterium. These changes are potentially significant in the context of anticipated improvements in obversational and nuclear physics uncertainties.PACS numbers: 95.85.Ry,14.60.Lm,26.35.+c,98.70.Vc

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“…BBN yields away from the Standard Model are computed by rescaling the neutrino energy density during BBN by a factor n N 3. We then assume that the expansion rate at recombination is governed by an effective number of neutrino species, = n N N 3.046 3 eff (Mangano et al 2005; see also, Grohs et al 2016). To the best of our knowledge, no detailed calculation of neutrino weak decoupling has been published for expansion rates equivalent to ¹ n N 3. through a combination of a better electromagnetic current operator and more careful attention to the wave function precision.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%