Confronting interacting dark radiation scenarios with cosmological data

Abstract

Dark radiation (DR) is generally predicted in new physics scenarios that address fundamental puzzles of the Standard Model or tensions in the cosmological data. Cosmological data has the sensitivity to constrain not only the energy density of DR, but also whether it is interacting. In this paper, we present a systematic study of five types of interacting DR (free-streaming, fluid, decoupling, instantaneous decoupling, and recoupling DR) and their impact on cosmological observables. We modify the Boltzmann hierarchy to describe all these types of interacting DR under the relaxation time approximation. We, for the first time, robustly calculate the collision terms for recoupling scalar DR and provide a better estimation of the recoupling transition redshift. We demonstrate the distinct features of each type of DR on the CMB and matter power spectra. We perform MCMC scans using the Planck 2018 data and BAO data. Assuming no new physics in the SM neutrino sector, we find no statistically significant constraints on the couplings of DR, although there is a slight preference for the fluid-like limit of all the cases. In the case of instantaneous decoupling DR, this limit corresponds to a late transition redshift around recombination. The $\Delta N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ constraint varies marginally depending on the type of DR.

20 pages + references, 12 figures

References in corpus (29)

• A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km/s/Mpc Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team
• The Clustering of the SDSS DR7 Main Galaxy Sample I: A 4 per cent Distance Measure at z=0.15
• Massive neutrinos and cosmology
• A precision calculation of relic neutrino decoupling
• Interacting Dark Sector and Precision Cosmology
• Interacting neutrinos in cosmology: exact description and constraints
• Cosmology with self-interacting sterile neutrinos and dark matter - A pseudoscalar model
• Updated constraints on massive neutrino self-interactions from cosmology in light of the $H_0$ tension
• Interacting radiation after Planck and its implications for the Hubble Tension
• A Step in Understanding the Hubble Tension
• Consistent lensing and clustering in a low-$S_8$ Universe with BOSS, DES Year 3, HSC Year 1 and KiDS-1000
• Light dark photon and fermionic dark radiation for the Hubble constant and the structure formation
• Neutrino Mass Bounds in the era of Tension Cosmology
• Boltzmann hierarchy for interacting neutrinos I: formalism
• Residual Non-Abelian Dark Matter and Dark Radiation
• Neutrino Self-Interactions and Double Beta Decay
• Are cosmological neutrinos free-streaming?
• Constraints on secret neutrino interactions after Planck
• Time-varying neutrino mass from a supercooled phase transition: current cosmological constraints and impact on the ${\Omega }_m$-${\sigma }_8$ plane
• Hidden Charged Dark Matter and Chiral Dark Radiation
• The full Boltzmann hierarchy for dark matter-massive neutrino interactions
• Distinguishing between Neutrinos and time-varying Dark Energy through Cosmic Time
• Cosmic Neutrino Background Detection in Large-Neutrino-Mass Cosmologies
• Linear scale bounds on dark matter--dark radiation interactions and connection with the small scale crisis of cold dark matter
• Bulk viscosity of a gas of neutrinos and coupled scalar particles, in the era of recombination
• Probing neutrino interactions and dark radiation with gravitational waves
• Global view of neutrino interactions in cosmology: The freestreaming window as seen by Planck
• Pseudoscalar sterile neutrino self-interactions in light of Planck, SPT and ACT data
• Constraining dynamical neutrino mass generation with cosmological data

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Seven hints that early-time new physics alone is not sufficient to solve the Hubble tension
• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• Multidimensionality of the Hubble tension: the roles of ${\Omega }_m$ and ${\omega }_c$
• Combining pre- and post-recombination new physics to address cosmological tensions: case study with varying electron mass and sign-switching cosmological constant
• Dark Radiation from Neutrino Mixing after Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Strong constraints on a simple self-interacting neutrino cosmology
• Planck-PR4 anisotropy spectra show (better) consistency with General Relativity
• Resonant neutrino self-interactions and the $H_0$ tension
• Exploring Mirror Twin Higgs Cosmology with Present and Future Weak Lensing Surveys
• Abundance and properties of dark radiation from the cosmic microwave background
• Free-Streaming Neutrinos and Their Phase Shift in Current and Future CMB Power Spectra
• Directly Probing Neutrino Interactions through CMB Phase Shift Measurements
• COZMIC. II. Cosmological Zoom-in Simulations with Fractional non-CDM Initial Conditions
• Impact of Low ell's on Large Scale Structure Anomalies
• Resilience and implications of adiabatic CMB cooling
• Impostor Among $\nu$s: Dark Radiation Masquerading as Self-Interacting Neutrinos
• 2D BAO vs 3D BAO: Hints for new physics?
• Dark Matter-Radiation Scattering Enhances CMB Phase Shift through Dark Matter-loading
• A flexible parameterization to test early physics solutions to the Hubble tension with future CMB data
• Reconciling Cosmological Tensions with Inelastic Dark Matter and Dark Radiation in a $\mathbf{U}(1{)}_{\mathbf{D}}$ Framework
• Bias in the tensor-to-scalar ratio from self-interacting dark radiation
• Dark Matter Recoupling