English

Efficient analytic approximation for small-scale non-cold relic perturbations

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-11-20 v2

Abstract

We develop a highly accurate analytic approximation for small-scale non-cold relic perturbations by solving the collisionless Boltzmann equation in the quasi-stationary regime. The approximation is implemented in CLASSIER (CLASS Integral Equation Revision), a modified version of the Boltzmann solver CLASS that replaces the traditional truncated Boltzmann hierarchy of non-cold relic multipoles with a small set of integral equations solved iteratively. Applying it to massive neutrinos yields a factor-of-two reduction in total runtime relative to CLASSIER without the approximation. Compared to standard CLASS runs (with maxNCDM=40\ell_{\rm max}^{\rm NCDM}=40 and no late-time massive neutrino fluid approximation) under the same precision setting, CLASSIER with this approximation is faster by a factor of 3-6. The approximation faithfully reproduces the late-time behavior of massive neutrino perturbations and preserves sub-0.1%0.1\% accuracy in the matter power spectrum today up to comoving wavenumber k=100Mpc1k=100\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}. With this approximation, massive-neutrino perturbations are no longer the computational bottleneck on small scales for linear-theory predictions. The approach can be readily extendable to non-standard dark-matter models, and offers prospects for further efficiency gains in high-precision cosmological analyses.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.20821,
  title  = {Efficient analytic approximation for small-scale non-cold relic perturbations},
  author = {Nanoom Lee and Yacine Ali-Haïmoud and Marc Kamionkowski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.20821},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

7+3 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. V2 with minor updates

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:02:41.287Z