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Cosmological bounds on masses of neutrinos and other thermal relics

Steen Hannestad
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Abstract

With the advent of precision data, cosmology has become an extremely powerful tool for probing particle physics. The prime example of this is the cosmological bound on light neutrino masses. Here I review the current status of cosmological neutrino mass bounds as well as the various uncertainties involved in deriving them. From WMAP, SDSS, and Lyman-alpha forest data an upper bound on the sum of neutrino masses of 0.65 eV (95% C.L.) can be derived with any assumptions about bias. I also present new limits on other light, thermally produced particles. For example, a hypothetical new Majorana fermion decoupling around the electroweak phase transition must have m < 5 eV.

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Steen Hannestad. 2004-09-12. Cosmological bounds on masses of neutrinos and other thermal relics. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812702210_0013

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