Cosmology-friendly time-varying neutrino masses via the sterile neutrino portal

Abstract

We investigate a consistent scenario of time-varying neutrino masses, and discuss its impact on cosmology, beta decay, and neutrino oscillation experiments. Such time-varying masses are assumed to be generated by the coupling between a sterile neutrino and an ultralight scalar field, which in turn affects the light neutrinos by mixing. Besides, the scalar could act as an ultralight dark matter candidate. We demonstrate how various cosmological bounds, such as those coming from Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background, as well as large scale structures, can be evaded in this model. This scenario can be further constrained using multiple terrestrial experiments. In particular, for beta-decay experiments like KATRIN, non-trivial distortions to the electron spectrum can be induced, even when time-variation is fast and gets averaged out. Furthermore, the presence of time-varying masses of sterile neutrinos will alter the interpretation of light sterile neutrino parameter space in the context of the reactor and gallium anomalies. In addition, we also study the impact of such time-varying neutrino masses on results from the BEST collaboration, which have recently strengthened the gallium anomaly. If confirmed, we find that the time-varying neutrino mass hypothesis could give a better fit to the recent BEST data.

20 pages, 9 figures, updated, new references, change in notation

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Sterile Neutrino Shape-shifting Caused by Dark Matter
• Probing the Local Dark Matter Halo with Neutrino Oscillations
• Towards Resolving the Gallium Anomaly
• European Spallation Source as a searching tool for an ultralight scalar field
• Impact of the damping tail on neutrino mass constraints
• Black Holes as Fermion Factories
• Impact of the cosmic neutrino background on black hole superradiance
• Phasing out of Darkness: From Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter to Neutrino Masses via Time-Dependent Mixing
• Testing the dark origin of neutrino masses with oscillation experiments
• Neutrino Lorentz invariance violation from the CPT-even SME coefficients through a tensor interaction with cosmological scalar fields
• Exploring Ultralight Scalar Assistance in Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter: Cold Spectrum and Unusual X/Gamma-ray Signatures
• Light Sterile Neutrinos in the Early Universe: Effects of Altered Dispersion Relations and a coupling to Axion-Like Dark Matter