The Impact of Assuming Flatness in the Determination of Neutrino Properties from Cosmological Data

Details The Impact of Assuming Flatness in the Determination of Neutrino Properties from Cosmological Data The Impact of Assuming Flatness in the Determination of Neutrino Properties from Cosmological Data

2011-12-13

arxiv.org/abs/1112.3006v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

6 pages. 5 figures. Submitted to PRD

Scientific paper

Recent cosmological data have provided new constraints on the number of neutrino species and on the neutrino mass. However these constraints depend on assumptions related to the underlying cosmology. Since a correlation is expected between the number of effective neutrinos, N_{eff}, the neutrino mass \sum M_\nu, and the curvature of the universe, \Omega_k, it is useful to investigate the current constraints in the framework of a non-flat universe. In this paper we update the constraints on neutrino parameters by making use of the latest Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data from the ACT and SPT experiments and consider the possibility of a universe with non-zero curvature. We first find a negative correlation between curvature and N_{eff} with a correlation coefficient of -0.36 and we place new constraints on N_{eff} and \Omega_k, with N_{eff} = 4.03 +/- 0.45 and 10^3, \Omega_k = -4.46 +/- 5.24. Thus, even when \Omega_k is allowed to vary, N_{eff} = 3 is still disfavored at 95% confidence. The correlation between neutrino mass and curvature is much stronger, with a correlation coefficient of 0.78 that shifts the 95% upper limit of \sum M_\nu < 0.446 eV to \sum M_\nu < 0.948 eV. Thus, the impact of assuming flatness in neutrino cosmology is significant and an essential consideration with future experiments.

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