Related papers: Anthropic Bound on Dark Radiation and its Implicat…
It is possible that the strongest interactions between dark matter and the Standard Model occur via the neutrino sector. Unlike gamma rays and charged particles, neutrinos provide a unique avenue to probe for astrophysical sources of dark…
With the latest astronomical data including Cosmic Microwave Background (WMAP three year, CBI, ACBAR, VSA), Type Ia Supernova ("gold sample"), Galaxy Clustering (SDSS 3-D matter power, Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and Baryon Acoustic Oscillating…
We study particle decay as the origin of dark radiation. After elaborating general properties and useful parametrisations we provide model-independent and easy-to-use constraints from nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background and…
The light neutrino masses are at present most stringently constraint via cosmological probes. In particular the Planck collaboration reports $ \sum m_\nu \leq 0.12\,\mathrm{eV}$ at $95\%$ CL within the standard cosmological model. This is…
We study the effect of neutrino degeneracy on primordial nucleosynthesis in a universe in which the cosmological scale factor evolves linearly with time. The degeneracy parameter of electron type neutrinos ($\xi_e$) determines the $n/p$…
Recent cosmological data have provided evidence for a "dark" relativistic background at high statistical significance. Parameterized in terms of the number of relativistic degrees of freedom Neff, however, the current data seems to indicate…
In this paper we address the cosmic frequency of technological species. Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake Equation. Using these and modifying the form and intent of the…
The effective number of neutrino species, $N_{\rm eff}$, serves as a key fitting parameter extensively employed in cosmological studies. In this work, we point out a fundamental inconsistency in the conventional treatment of $N_{\rm eff}$…
We study diffuse gamma-ray emission at intermediate Galactic latitudes measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope with the aim of searching for a signal from dark matter annihilation or decay. In the absence of a robust dark matter signal,…
Cosmology in the near future promises a measurement of the sum of neutrino masses, a fundamental Standard Model parameter, as well as substantially-improved constraints on the dark energy. We use the shape of the BOSS redshift-space galaxy…
We derive general constraints on the relic abundances of a long-lived particle which mainly decays into a neutrino (and something else) at cosmological time scales. Such an exotic particle may show up in various particle-physics models…
The South Pole Telescope (SPT), Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have each reported measurements of the cosmic microwave background's (CMB) angular power spectrum which favor the existence…
The observed properties of stars and especially the neutrino signal of the supernova 1987A provide an upper limit to the axion mass, while the age and expansion rate of the universe provide a lower limit. There remains a "window of…
Short baseline neutrino experiments such as LSND and MiniBooNE seem to suggest the existence of light sterile neutrinos. Meanwhile, current cosmic microwave background (CMB) and big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) measurements place an upper…
The anthropic principle is an inevitable constraint on the space of possible theories. As such it is central to determining the limits of physics. In particular, we contend that what is ultimately possible in physics is determined by…
Model-independent mass limits assess the robustness of current cosmological measurements of the neutrino mass scale. Consistency between high-multipole and low-multiple Cosmic Microwave Background observations measuring such scale further…
We evaluate the problem of galaxy formation in the landscape approach to phenomenology of the axion sector. With other parameters of standard LambdaCDM cosmology held fixed, the density of cold dark matter is bounded below relative to the…
Using several cosmological observations, i.e. the cosmic microwave background anisotropies (WMAP), the weak gravitational lensing (CFHTLS), the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (SDSS+WiggleZ), the most recent observational…
We have made an analysis of limits on the neutrino mass based upon the formation of large-scale structure in the presence of a primordial magnetic field. We find that a new upper bound on the neutrino mass is possible based upon fits to the…
Extragalactic and galactic cosmic rays scatter with the cosmic neutrino background during propagation to Earth, yielding a flux of relic neutrinos boosted to larger energies. If an overdensity of relic neutrinos is present in galaxies, and…