Probing neutrino decays with the cosmic microwave background
Astrophysics
2009-10-31 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
We investigate in detail the possibility of constraining neutrino decays with data from the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Two generic decays are considered \nu_H -> \nu_L \phi and \nu_H -> \nu_L \nu_L_bar \nu_L. We have solved the momentum dependent Boltzmann equation in order to account for possible relativistic decays. Doing this we estimate that any neutrino with mass m > 1 eV decaying before the present should be detectable with future CMBR data. Combining this result with other results on stable neutrinos, any neutrino mass of the order 1 eV should be detectable.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9903475,
title = {Probing neutrino decays with the cosmic microwave background},
author = {Steen Hannestad},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9903475},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. D