Mass Varying Neutrinos With More Than One Species Of Neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper investigates models where a scalar field couples to multiple neutrino species, revealing stability constraints and limitations in explaining dark energy with the lightest neutrino due to feedback from heavier neutrinos.

Contribution

It extends the analysis of Mass Varying Neutrinos to multiple species, highlighting stability issues and the ineffectiveness of the lightest neutrino as dark energy.

Findings

Adiabatic non-relativistic MaVaNs are constrained by neutrino nugget formation.

Using the lightest neutrino to explain dark energy is ineffective due to feedback.

Models with multiple neutrino species face similar stability challenges.

Abstract

In the context of Mass Varying Neutrinos(MaVaNs) we study a model in which a scalar field is coupled to more than one species of neutrinos with different masses. In general, adiabatic models of non-relativistic MaVaNs are heavily constrained by their stability towards the formation of neutrino nuggets. These constraints also apply to models with more than one neutrino species, and we find that using the lightest neutrino, which is still relativistic, as an explanation for dark energy does not work because of a feedback mechanism from the heavier neutrinos.