Unstable massive tau-neutrinos and primordial nucleosynthesis

Abstract

The impact of unstable Majorana tau neutrinos on primordial nucleosynthesis is considered. The mass and lifetime of nu_tau are taken in the intervals 0.1-20 MeV and 0.001-400 sec respectively. The studied decay modes are nu_tau -> nu_mu + phi and nu_tau -> nu_e + phi, where phi is a massless (or light) scalar. Integro-differential kinetic equations are solved numerically without any simplifying assumptions. Our results deviate rather strongly from earlier calculations. Depending on mass, lifetime, and decay channels of the nu_tau, the number of effective neutrino species (found from He4), in addition to the 3 standard ones, varies from -2 to +2.5. The abundances of H2 and Li7 are also calculated.

arXiv comment36 pages including 28 figures, minor changes

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• Heavy sterile neutrinos: Bounds from big-bang nucleosynthesis and SN 1987A
• Explaining LSND by a decaying sterile neutrino
• Cosmological and astrophysical bounds on a heavy sterile neutrino and the KARMEN anomaly
• Measuring the cosmological background of relativistic particles with WMAP
• Constraining the helium abundance with CMB
• Spectral distortion of cosmic background radiation by scattering on hot electrons. Exact calculations
• Precision Cosmology and the Density of Baryons in the Universe
• Photon Spectrum Produced by the Late Decay of a Cosmic Neutrino Background
• Decaying neutrino and a high cosmological baryon density
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis with Independent Neutrino Distribution Functions
• Scenario of Light Sterile Neutrinos with A Heavy Tau Neutrino in A Supersymmetric Model
• Neutrino Oscillations and the Early Universe
• Alternative Solutions to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Heavy sterile neutrinos - what they can be and what they can't