Neutrino mass from Cosmology

TL;DR

Cosmological observations like CMB anisotropies and large-scale structure help constrain neutrino masses, offering complementary insights to laboratory experiments and promising more precise future measurements.

Contribution

This paper reviews how cosmological data can be used to determine neutrino properties, especially their mass, providing new bounds and future prospects.

Findings

Current cosmological data constrain neutrino mass sum to about 1 eV or less.

Future measurements could detect neutrino masses in the sub-eV range.

Cosmology offers a complementary approach to laboratory neutrino experiments.

Abstract

Neutrinos can play an important role in the evolution of the Universe, modifying some of the cosmological observables. In this contribution we summarize the main aspects of cosmological relic neutrinos and we describe how the precision of present cosmological data can be used to learn about neutrino properties, in particular their mass, providing complementary information to beta decay and neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments. We show how the analysis of current cosmological observations, such as the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background or the distribution of large-scale structure, provides an upper bound on the sum of neutrino masses of order 1 eV or less, with very good perspectives from future cosmological measurements which are expected to be sensitive to neutrino masses well into the sub-eV range.