Free streaming

Abstract: Well-motivated elementary particle candidates for the dark matter, such as the sterile neutrino, behave as warm dark matter (WDM). For particle masses of order a keV, free streaming produces a cutoff in the linear fluctuation power spectrum at a scale corresponding to dwarf galaxies. We investigate the abundance and structure of WDM haloes and subhaloes on these scales using high resolution cosmological N-body simulations of galactic haloes of mass similar to the Milky Way’s. On scales larger than the free-streaming cutoff, the initial conditions have the same power spectrum and phases as one of the cold dark matter (CDM) haloes previously simulated by Springel et al as part of the Virgo consortium Aquarius project. We have simulated four haloes with WDM particle masses in the range 1.4 − 2.3 keV and, for one case, we have carried out further simulations at varying resolution. N-body simulations in which the power spectrum cutoff is resolved are known to undergo artificial fragmentation in filaments producing spurious clumps which, for small masses (< 10 7 M ⊙ in our case) outnumber genuine haloes. We have developed a robust algorithm to identify these spurious objects and remove them from our halo catalogues. We find that the WDM subhalo mass function is suppressed by well over an order magnitude relative to the CDM case for masses < 10 9 M ⊙ . Requiring that there should be at least as many subhaloes as there are observed satellites in the Milky Way leads to a conservative lower limit to the (thermal equivalent) WDM particle mass of ∼ 1.5keV. WDM haloes and subhaloes have cuspy density distributions that are well described by NFW or Einasto profiles. Their central densities are lower for lower WDM particle masses and none of the models we have considered suffer from the “too big to fail” problem recently highlighted by Boylan-Kolchin et al.

Abstract: New physics in the neutrino sector might be necessary to address anomalies between different neutrino oscillation experiments. Intriguingly, it also offers a possible solution to the discrepant cosmological measurements of H0 and σ8. We show here that delaying the onset of neutrino free streaming until close to the epoch of matter-radiation equality can naturally accommodate a larger value for the Hubble constant H0=72.3±1.4 km s−1 Mpc−1 and a lower value of the matter fluctuations σ8=0.786±0.020, while not degrading the fit to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) damping tail. We achieve this by introducing neutrino self-interactions in the presence of a nonvanishing sum of neutrino masses. Without explicitly incorporating additional neutrino species, this strongly interacting neutrino cosmology prefers Neff=4.02±0.29, which has interesting implications for particle model building and neutrino oscillation anomalies. We show that the absence of the neutrino free-streaming phase shift on the CMB can be compensated for by shifting the values of several cosmological parameters, hence providing an important caveat to the detections made in the literature. Due to their impact on the evolution of the gravitational potential at early times, self-interacting neutrinos and their subsequent decoupling leave a rich structure on the matter power spectrum. In particular, we point out the existence of a novel localized feature appearing on scales entering the horizon at the onset of neutrino free streaming. While the interacting neutrino cosmology provides a better global fit to current cosmological data, we find that traditional Bayesian analyses penalize the model as compared to the standard cosmological scenario due to the relatively narrow range of neutrino interaction strengths that is favored by the data. The model we present illustrates desirable cosmological impacts to simultaneously resolve the Hubble constant and matter clustering tensions rather than proposing a viable particle model. Our analysis shows that it is possible to find radically different cosmological models that nonetheless provide excellent fits to the data, hence providing an impetus to thoroughly explore alternate cosmological scenarios.

Abstract: We perform an extensive suite of N-body simulations of the matter power spectrum, incorporating massive neutrinos in the range Mν= 0.15–0.6 eV, probing the non-linear regime at scales k < 10 h Mpc−1 at z < 3. We extend the widely used halofit approximation to account for the effect of massive neutrinos on the power spectrum. In the strongly non-linear regime, halofit systematically overpredicts the suppression due to the free streaming of the neutrinos. The maximal discrepancy occurs at k∼ 1h Mpc−1, and is at the level of 10 per cent of the total suppression. Most published constraints on neutrino masses based on halofit are not affected, as they rely on data probing the matter power spectrum in the linear or mildly non-linear regime. However, predictions for future galaxy, Lyman α forest and weak lensing surveys extending to more non-linear scales will benefit from the improved approximation to the non-linear matter power spectrum we provide. Our approximation reproduces the induced neutrino suppression over the targeted scales and redshifts significantly better. We test its robustness with regard to changing cosmological parameters and a variety of modelling effects.

Abstract: An analytic formula is given for the traceless transverse part of the anisotropic stress tensor due to free streaming neutrinos, and used to derive an integro-differential equation for the propagation of cosmological gravitational waves. The solution shows that anisotropic stress reduces the squared amplitude by 35.6% for wavelengths that enter the horizon during the radiation-dominated phase, independent of any cosmological parameters. This decreases the tensor temperature and polarization correlation functions for these wavelengths by the same amount. The effect is less for wavelengths that enter the horizon at later times. At the longest wavelengths the decrease in the tensor correlation functions due to neutrino free streaming ranges from 10.7% for ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{M}{h}^{2}=0.1$ to 9.0% for ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{M}{h}^{2}=0.15.$ An appendix gives a general proof that tensor as well as scalar modes satisfy a conservation law for perturbations outside the horizon, even when the anisotropic stress tensor is not negligible.