Thermal decoupling in cosmology

A particle species thermally decouples when its interaction rate falls below the Hubble parameter. Its collisionless relativistic distribution subsequently redshifts with temperature proportional to $a^{-1}$, while annihilations among still-coupled species can heat the remaining plasma.

If a species and the remaining bath share a temperature at decoupling, their initial entropy ratio is the ratio of their entropy-weighted degrees of freedom. Subsequent conservation of each sector's comoving entropy keeps that fraction constant, even when the bath heats relative to the relic. For a two-state neutrino species leaving an ideal Standard Model bath, the fraction is $(7/4)/(106.75+7/4)\simeq 1.61\%$.

If relic particle number and reference-gas entropy are separately conserved in a comoving volume, their ratio $Y=n/s$ is constant. A decay or entropy injection can change it. The reference entropy is that of the specified thermal sector, not necessarily the entropy of the decoupled relic itself.

A species freezing out while relativistic retains its thermal comoving number. If it is nonrelativistic today, ${\rho }_x\simeq m_x{n}_x$. Comparing with photons gives ${\Omega }_x/{\Omega }_{\gamma }=m_x(n_x/n_{\gamma })/⟨E_{\gamma }⟩$. An upper density fraction therefore bounds its mass inversely with its relic number density. The relation does not apply unchanged to a species whose abundance is depleted by nonrelativistic annihilation.

A massive decoupled sector enters a cannibal phase when its particles are nonrelativistic but rapid number-changing reactions maintain chemical equilibrium and zero chemical potential from number-changing reactions. Rest-mass energy released by $3\to 2$ reactions heats the remaining particles, so the sector cools much more slowly than an isolated number-conserving nonrelativistic gas. The temperature laws follow directly from cosmological entropy conservation. An example is discussed in Cannibal Dark Matter.

The nonrelativistic entropy at zero chemical potential and $s_{\varphi }{a}^3=\mathrm{constant}$ give $x+\frac{1}{2}\log x=3\log a+\mathrm{constant}$. Using this leading nonrelativistic approximation, differentiation yieldsThis is much smaller in magnitude than the relativistic-bath cooling rate $-1$ when $x\gg 1$ and its entropy degrees of freedom are fixed. Thus cannibal phase of a decoupled sector cooling is logarithmic. Once number-changing reactions freeze out, a number-conserving nonrelativistic gas instead cools as $a^{-2}$ during adiabatic expansion.

For a massive real scalar with one internal degree of freedom with $x=m/T_{\varphi }\gg 1$, fixed separately conserved visible and dark entropy ratio $\xi$, and relativistic visible bath with entropy degrees of freedom $g_{\ast s}^{\mathrm{SM}}$,Indeed, equate $s_{\mathrm{SM}}=(2{\pi }^2/45)g_{\ast s}^{\mathrm{SM}}{T}_{\gamma }^3$ to $\xi s_{\varphi }$ and use nonrelativistic entropy at zero chemical potential. For $g$ internal states the right side gains $g^{1/3}$. The nonrelativistic species cannot be assigned a constant relativistic entropy count.

Kinetic decoupling occurs when momentum-exchange collisions cease to maintain the temperature and velocity dispersion of a particle species in equilibrium with a surrounding bath. Afterwards, a freely moving nonrelativistic particle has momentum proportional to $a^{-1}$ and effective kinetic temperature proportional to $a^{-2}$, where $a$ is the scale factor.

If a relativistic species decouples when the coupled plasma has $g_{\ast s,\mathrm{dec}}$ entropy degrees of freedom, then after the plasma reaches $g_{\ast s}$ degrees of freedom,The ratio follows from separate redshifting of the decoupled species and cosmological entropy conservation in the coupled plasma.

An extra relativistic neutrino that decouples before ordinary neutrinos misses two stages of plasma heating. Until ordinary decoupling, entropy conservation gives a temperature ratio $(43/(4g_d){)}^{1/3}$. Electron-positron annihilation then heats photons but neither neutrino population, multiplying the ratio by $(4/11{)}^{1/3}$. Here $g_d$ counts the coupled bath at the extra species' decoupling, with no subsequent exotic entropy injection.

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.