Cosmic neutrino background

The cosmic neutrino background is the relic population of neutrinos that thermally decoupled before electron-positron annihilation. Entropy transfer to photons gives

With negligible chemical potential, the Fermi-Dirac distribution has $3/4$ of the boson number density per degree of freedom at equal temperature. A species with $g_{\nu }$ populated states therefore has $n_{\nu }/n_{\gamma }=(3g_{\nu }/8)(T_{\nu }/T_{\gamma }{)}^3$, since photons have two states. This remains the number-density ratio after the neutrino becomes massive if its comoving particle number is conserved.

For one relic-neutrino species with two internal states, physical momentum $p$, comoving temperature $T_{\nu }$, and mass $m_{\nu }$,It approaches $7{\pi }^2(T_{\nu }/a{)}^4/120$ while relativistic and $n_{\nu }{m}_{\nu }$ after becoming nonrelativistic.

A standard thermal Cosmic neutrino background with one populated neutrino and one antineutrino helicity per species has $n_{\nu }+n_{\bar{\nu }}=3n_{\gamma }/11$ after electron-positron annihilation in cosmology. If this species is nonrelativistic today and dominates a spatially flat matter universe, equate $m_{\nu }(n_{\nu }+n_{\bar{\nu }})$ to the critical density $3H_0^2{M}_P^2/(8\pi )$, using the unreduced Planck mass. The photon number density gives the displayed conditional mass. Extra populated states or several massive species change the abundance count; vacuum-dominated cosmology changes the density available for matter.

Expanding the relic-neutrino energy density at $T_{\nu }/a\ll m_{\nu }$ givesThe thermal speed decreases as $a^{-1}$ after the neutrinos become nonrelativistic.

The cosmic neutrino background last-scattering surface is the locus from which relic neutrinos that reach an observer underwent their final appreciable scattering. Although neutrino decoupling occurs before photon decoupling, a massive neutrino travels slower than light after becoming nonrelativistic, so its last-scattering surface need not be farther away than the cosmic microwave background last-scattering surface.

Neutrino decoupling occurs when weak interactions become slower than cosmic expansion. The neutrino distribution then free streams and cools as $T_{\nu }\propto a^{-1}$.

In natural units with unreduced Planck mass $M_P=G^{-1/2}$, the radiation-era Hubble parameter scales as $\sqrt{g_{\ast }}{T}^2/M_P$, while a low-energy weak interaction rate scales as $G_F^2{T}^5$. Their equality gives a decoupling scale of order one MeV. Distinct weak processes have distinct rate coefficients: neutrino decoupling and cosmological weak freeze-out of neutron-proton conversion are nearby events, not an identical precise temperature inferred from the power laws alone.

A relativistic species decoupling before ordinary neutrino decoupling cools as $T_X\propto a^{-1}$. Cosmological entropy conservation in the remaining bath gives $T_X/T_{\nu }=[10.75/g_{\ast s,D}{]}^{1/3}$, where $g_{\ast s,D}$ counts that bath just after the early species has left it. Subsequent electron-positron annihilation in cosmology gives $T_{\nu }/T_{\gamma }=(4/11{)}^{1/3}$. For the ideal high-temperature relativistic entropy content of the Standard Model, the resulting ratio is about $0.332$.

After neutrino decoupling, electron-positron annihilation transfers entropy to photons but not to neutrinos. Comparing the electromagnetic entropy degrees of freedom before and after annihilation gives $T_{\nu }/T_{\gamma }=(4/11{)}^{1/3}$.

For $T\ll m_e$ and negligible chemical potentials, the combined equilibrium density of electrons and positrons divided by the photon number density isThe exponential suppression eventually makes pair equilibrium incompatible with the residual electrons required by charge neutrality.

The neutrino degeneracy parameter is the dimensionless chemical potentialIn thermal equilibrium the corresponding antineutrino has chemical potential $-{\mu }_{\nu }$.

Combining the degenerate neutrino and antineutrino energy density with a critical density bound constrains the neutrino degeneracy parameter through the fourth root of the available energy budget. The numerical bound depends on $T_{\nu ,0}/T_{\gamma ,0}$ and the number of degenerate flavors. The standard ratio $(4/11{)}^{1/3}$ assumes neutrino decoupling before electron-positron annihilation in cosmology; it should be stated as a thermal-history assumption if the degeneracy is very large. The massless formula is inappropriate for a species that is nonrelativistic today.

For one massless neutrino flavor with one helicity per member and $|{\mu }_{\nu }|\gg T_{\nu }$, the Fermi-Dirac distribution fills momentum states up to the positive chemical potential. If ${\mu }_{\nu }>0$, the neutrino density is ${\mu }_{\nu }^4/(8{\pi }^2)$ and the antineutrino contribution is approximately $3T_{\nu }^4{e}^{-{\mu }_{\nu }/T_{\nu }}/{\pi }^2$. For negative chemical potential the roles reverse. Thus the leading total energy density is even in ${\mu }_{\nu }$ and has no factor of two from the two species. Extra populated internal degrees of freedom do multiply it. This distinction prevents using a positive-degeneracy approximation for an exponentially dilute negative-chemical-potential distribution.

A degenerate relic neutrino has ${\xi }_{\nu }\gg 1$. In the ultrarelativistic limit its Fermi-Dirac distribution approaches a filled momentum sphere, giving for one internal statewhile the antineutrino density is exponentially suppressed.

A nonzero neutrino chemical potential produces unequal neutrino and antineutrino densities and hence a cosmological lepton asymmetry. It changes the radiation density, and an electron-neutrino asymmetry also changes neutron--proton weak equilibrium during Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

The effective number of neutrino species parametrizes radiation beyond photons through

If a real relativistic scalar decouples when the other coupled particles have entropy degrees of freedom $g_{\ast s}(T_d)$, thenEarlier decoupling and the subsequent annihilation of more coupled species make the scalar colder and suppress its contribution.