A combined view of sterile-neutrino constraints from CMB and neutrino oscillation measurements

Abstract

We perform a comparative analysis of constraints on sterile neutrinos from the Planck experiment and from current and future neutrino oscillation experiments (MINOS, IceCube, SBN). For the first time, we express joint constraints on Neff and meffsterile from the CMB in the Δm2, sin2⁡2θ parameter space used by oscillation experiments. We also show constraints from oscillation experiments in the Neff, meffsterile cosmology parameter space. In a model with a single sterile neutrino species and using standard assumptions, we find that the Planck 2015 data and the oscillation experiments measuring muon-neutrino (νμ) disappearance have similar sensitivity.

Keywords

• Sterile neutrinos
• Cosmology
• Oscillation experiments