English

What's the matter with $\Sigma m_{\nu}$?

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-07-23 v2

Abstract

Due to non-zero neutrino rest masses we expect the energy density today in non-relativistic matter, ωm\omega_{\rm m}, to be greater than the sum of baryon and cold dark matter densities, ωcb\omega_{\rm cb}. We also expect the amplitude of deflections of CMB photons due to gravitational lensing to be suppressed relative to expectations assuming massless neutrinos. The combination of CMB and BAO data, however, appear to be defying both of these expectations. Here we review how the neutrino rest mass is determined from cosmological observations, and emphasize the complementary roles played by BAO and lensing data in this process. We then use a phenomenological model to find that the preference from CMB and BAO data for a matter density that is below expectations from the CMB alone is at the 2.3σ2.3\, \sigma level. We also show that if a fraction of the dark matter decays to dark radiation, the preference for ωm>ωcb\omega_{\rm m} > \omega_{\rm cb} can be restored, but with a small increase to the CMB lensing excess.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.14470,
  title  = {What's the matter with $\Sigma m_{\nu}$?},
  author = {Gabriel P. Lynch and Lloyd Knox},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.14470},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

18 pages, 11 figures; v2 has significant revisions, including using new data, an updated and expanded discussion in Sec II, and correcting a mistake in the original optical depth calculation