Cosmological search for sterile neutrinos after DESI 2024

Abstract

The question of whether the massive sterile neutrinos exist remains a crucial unresolved issue in both particle physics and cosmology. We explore the cosmological constraints on the massive sterile neutrinos using the latest observational data, including the baryon acoustic oscillations data from DESI, the cosmic microwave background data from Planck satellite and ACT, and the 5-year Type Ia supernova data and the 3-year weak-lensing data from DES. We search for the massive sterile neutrinos within the $\Lambda$CDM, $w$CDM, and $w_0{w}_a$CDM models. Our analysis shows that when considering massive sterile neutrinos within the $w_0{w}_a\mathrm{CDM}$ model, the combined datasets allow us to infer a non-zero sterile neutrino mass at approximately $2\sigma$ confidence level. Specifically, in the $w_0{w}_a$CDM+Sterile model, the effective mass of sterile neutrinos and the effective number of relativistic species are constrained to be $m_{\nu ,\mathrm{sterile}}^{\mathrm{eff}}=0.50_{-0.27}^{+0.33}\mathrm{eV}$ and $N_{\mathrm{eff}}=3.076_{-0.017}^{+0.011}$, respectively. However, the $\Lambda$CDM+Sterile and $w$CDM+Sterile models could not provide evidence supporting the existence of massive sterile neutrinos.

11 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in the European Physical Journal C

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A search for sterile neutrinos in interacting dark energy models using DESI baryon acoustic oscillations and DES supernovae data
• Dark Energy in the DESI Era: A Brief Review of Evidence, Beyond-$\Lambda$CDM Interpretations, and Tensions
• Joint Constraints on Neutrinos and Dynamical Dark Energy in Minimally Modified Gravity
• Measuring neutrino mass in light of ACT DR6 and DESI DR2