Precision calculation of $N_{\text{eff}}$ with Neutrino Direct Simulation Monte Carlo
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2025-11-26 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract
Neutrino Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) is a Monte Carlo method for solving the neutrino Boltzmann equation in the early Universe, designed to track the evolution of cosmic neutrinos across a wide range of cosmological scenarios. We develop a complete DSMC solver that consistently incorporates the effects of the electron mass, three-flavour neutrino oscillations, and finite-temperature QED corrections to the thermodynamics of the electromagnetic plasma. As a first application, we perform a high-precision calculation of neutrino decoupling in the standard cosmological model and obtain , in excellent agreement with state-of-the-art results.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.08379,
title = {Precision calculation of $N_{\text{eff}}$ with Neutrino Direct Simulation Monte Carlo},
author = {Oleksii Ihnatenko and Maksym Ovchynnikov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.08379},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.D