Evidence for massive neutrinos from CMB and lensing observations

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether massive neutrinos can resolve tensions in cosmological data, finding evidence for non-zero neutrino masses and suggesting sterile neutrinos may reconcile some observational discrepancies.

Contribution

It provides new constraints on neutrino masses from CMB, lensing, and BAO data, indicating a significant detection of neutrino mass modifications beyond the standard model.

Findings

Active neutrino mass sum: ~0.32 eV

Sterile neutrino effective mass: ~0.45 eV

Reconciliation of BAO and H0 measurements with sterile neutrinos

Abstract

We discuss whether massive neutrinos (either active or sterile) can reconcile some of the tensions within cosmological data that have been brought into focus by the recently released {\it Planck} data. We point out that a discrepancy is present when comparing the primary CMB and lensing measurements both from the CMB and galaxy lensing data using CFHTLenS, similar to that which arises when comparing CMB measurements and SZ cluster counts. A consistent picture emerges and including a prior for the cluster constraints and BAOs we find that: for an active neutrino model with 3 degenerate neutrinos, $\sum m_{\nu}= (0.320 \pm 0.081)\,{\rm eV}$, whereas for a sterile neutrino, in addition to 3 neutrinos with a standard hierarchy and $\sum m_{\nu}= 0.06\,{\rm eV}$, $m_{\nu, \, \rm sterile}^{\rm eff}= (0.450 \pm 0.124)\,{\rm eV}$ and $\Delta N_{\rm eff} = 0.45 \pm 0.23$. In both cases there is a significant detection of modification to the neutrino sector from the standard model and in the case of the sterile neutrino it is possible to reconcile the BAO and local $H_0$ measurements. However, a caveat to our result is some internal tension between the CMB and lensing/cluster observations, and the masses are in excess of those estimated from the shape of the matter power spectrum from galaxy surveys.