Sterile Neutrinos in astrophysical and cosmological sauce

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of sterile neutrinos, focusing on their subtle roles in cosmology and supernovae, and discusses constraints and future detection prospects based on recent bounds.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of sterile neutrino effects across cosmology and supernova physics, updating bounds and exploring potential future signals.

Findings

LSND sterile neutrino region is excluded by cosmological constraints

Current bounds significantly limit sterile neutrino parameter space

Cosmology and supernovae are effective tools for probing sterile neutrinos

Abstract

The study of sterile neutrinos has recently acquired a different flavor: being now excluded as the dominant solution for the solar or atmospheric conversions, sterile neutrinos, still attractive for many other reasons, have thus become even more elusive. The present relevant questions are: which subdominant role can they have? Where (and how) can they show up? Cosmology and supernovae turn out to be powerful tools to address these issues. With the most general mixing scenarios in mind, I present the analysis of many possible effects on BBN, CMB, LSS, and in SN physics due to sterile neutrinos. I discuss the computational techniques, present the state-of-the-art bounds, identify the still allowed regions and study some of the most promising future probes. I show how the region of the LSND sterile neutrino is excluded by the constraints of standard cosmology.