Cosmological lepton asymmetry, primordial nucleosynthesis and sterile neutrinos
- Theoretical Division, MS B285, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
- Theoretical Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510 (United States)
- Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106 (United States)
- Germany
We study post weak decoupling coherent active-sterile and active-active matter-enhanced neutrino flavor transformation in the early Universe. We show that flavor conversion efficiency at Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein resonances is likely to be high (adiabatic evolution) for relevant neutrino parameters and energies. However, we point out that these resonances cannot sweep smoothly and continuously with the expansion of the Universe. We show how neutrino flavor conversion in this way can leave both the active and sterile neutrinos with nonthermal energy spectra, and how, in turn, these distorted energy spectra can affect the neutron-to-proton ratio, primordial nucleosynthesis, and cosmological mass/closure constraints on sterile neutrinos. We demonstrate that the existence of a light sterile neutrino which mixes with active neutrinos can change fundamentally the relationship between the cosmological lepton numbers and the primordial nucleosynthesis {sup 4}He yield.
- OSTI ID:
- 20713515
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 72; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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