6533b82cfe1ef96bd128ec3c

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Cosmological radiation density with non-standard neutrino-electron interactions

Pablo Martínez-miravéPablo Martínez-miravéSergio PastorS. GariazzoMariam TórtolaMariam TórtolaPablo F. De Salas

subject

PhysicsNuclear and High Energy PhysicsParticle physicsCosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)CosmologiaAnnihilationNeutrino interactionsScatteringNeutrino oscillationsPhysicsQC1-999FOS: Physical sciencesFísicaElectronNeutrino decouplingPlasmaCosmologyCosmologyHigh Energy Physics - PhenomenologyHigh Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)Astrophysical plasmaHigh Energy Physics::ExperimentNon-standard neutrino interactionsNeutrinoAstrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

description

Neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI) with electrons are known to alter the picture of neutrino decoupling from the cosmic plasma. NSI modify both flavour oscillations through matter effects, and the annihilation and scattering between neutrinos and electrons and positrons in the thermal plasma. In view of the forthcoming cosmological observations, we perform a precision study of the impact of non-universal and flavour-changing NSI on the effective number of neutrinos, $N_{eff}$. We present the variation of $N_{eff}$ arising from the different NSI parameters and discuss the existing degeneracies among them, from cosmology alone and in relation to the current bounds from terrestrial experiments. Even though cosmology is generally less sensitive to NSI than these experiments, we find that future cosmological data would provide competitive and complementary constraints for some of the couplings and their combinations.

10.1016/j.physletb.2021.136508http://arxiv.org/abs/2105.08168