Related papers: Determining the Neutrino Lifetime from Cosmology
Recent cosmological measurements favour additional relativistic energy density beyond the one provided by the three active neutrinos and photons of the Standard Model (SM). This is often referred to as "dark radiation", suggesting the need…
I recall the place of neutrinos in the electroweak theory and summarize what we know about neutrino mass and flavor change. I next review the essential characteristics expected for relic neutrinos and survey what we can say about the…
A promising avenue to measure the total, and potentially individual, mass of neutrinos consists of leveraging cosmological datasets, such as the cosmic microwave background and surveys of the large-scale structure of the universe. In order…
The high precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background by the Planck survey yielded tight constraints on cosmological parameters and the statistics of the density fluctuations at the time of recombination. This provides the…
We solve the Boltzmann equation for cosmological neutrinos around the epoch of the electron-positron annihilation in order to verify the freeze-out approximation and to compute accurately the cosmological neutrino distribution function. We…
We consider here the decay of unstable particles in geodesic circular motion around compact objects. For the neutron, in particular, strong and weak decay are calculated by means of a semiclassical approach. Noticeable effects are expected…
Nowadays, at least two relics of the Big Bang have survived - the cosmological microwave background (CMB) and the cosmological neutrino background (C$\nu$B). Being the second most abundant particle in the Universe, the neutrino has a…
Precision cosmology and big-bang nucleosynthesis mildly favor extra radiation in the universe beyond photons and ordinary neutrinos, lending support to the existence of low-mass sterile neutrinos. We use the WMAP 7-year data, small-scale…
An unexplained $>4\,\sigma$ discrepancy persists between "beam" and "bottle" measurements of the neutron lifetime. A new model proposed that conversions of neutrons $n$ into mirror neutrons $n'$, part of a dark mirror sector, can increase…
We study the invisible decay of neutral hadrons in a representative model of the dark sector. The mesons $K_L$ and $B^0$ decay into the dark sector with branching rates that can be at the current experimental limits. The neutron decays with…
We consider the possibility of solar neutrino decay as a sub-leading effect on their propagation between production and detection. Using current oscillation data, we set a new lower bound to the $\nu_2$ neutrino lifetime at $\tau_2\, /\,…
We investigate the way how the total mass sum of neutrinos can be constrained from the neutrinoless double beta decay and cosmological probes with cosmic microwave background (WMAP 3-year results), large scale structures including 2dFGRS…
I review the basics of neutrino cosmology, from the question of neutrino decoupling and the presence of sterile neutrinos to the effects of neutrinos on the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure. Particular emphasis is put…
Supernova neutrinos could be well-suited for probing neutrino decay, since decay may be observed even for very small decay rates or coupling constants. We will introduce an effective operator framework for the combined description of…
Increasing improvements in the independent determinations of the Hubble constant and the age of the universe now seem to indicate that we need a small non-vanishing cosmological constant to make the two independent observations consistent…
Despite evidence for the existence of dark matter (DM) from very high and low redshifts, a moderate amount of DM particle decay remains a valid possibility. This includes both models with very long-lived yet unstable particles or mixed…
Dark matter decays into invisible particles can leave an imprint in large-scale structure surveys due to a characteristic redshift-dependent suppression of the power spectrum. We present a model with two quasi-degenerate singlet fermions,…
Data of the radiochemical experiment [E.L.Fireman, 1978] with 1.7 t of KC_2H_3O_2, accumulated deep underground during ~1 yr, were reanalyzed to set limits on di-nucleons (nn and np) decays into invisible channels (disappearance, decay into…
It is entirely possible that our Universe is filled with dark radiation, such as SM neutrinos or new physics states, that are sourced by the decay of dark matter with cosmologically long lifetime. If non-thermal neutrinos produced such way…
We investigate the radiative decay of the cosmic neutrino background, and its impact on the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) that is known to be a nearly perfect black body. We derive exact formulae for the decay of a…