Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / iii / Paper 53 / 2 / 1 / i

Neutrino decoupling occurs when the interaction time ceases to be short compared with the expansion time, or $\Gamma \simeq H$. In natural units, this givesUsing the supplied high-temperature estimate $g_{\ast }\simeq 100$,Here $M_{\mathrm{Pl}}$ is the unreduced Planck mass. The scaling $\Gamma /H\propto T^3$ explains the direction of the transition: interactions maintain thermal equilibrium at high temperature, but become ineffective as the universe cools. The extra species changes $g_{\ast }$ only by a small amount compared with the precision of the estimate.