Jose, Charles ; Samui, Saumyadip ; Subramanian, Kandaswamy ; Srianand, Raghunathan (2011) Weighing neutrinos using high redshift galaxy luminosity functions Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology, 83 (12). 123518_1-123518_12. ISSN 1550-7998
|
PDF
- Author Version
395kB |
Official URL: http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v83/i12/e123518
Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.83.123518
Abstract
Laboratory experiments measuring neutrino oscillations indicate small mass differences between different mass eigenstates of neutrinos. The absolute mass scale is however not determined, with at present the strongest upper limits coming from astronomical observations rather than terrestrial experiments. The presence of massive neutrinos suppresses the growth of perturbations below a characteristic mass scale, thereby leading to a decreased abundance of collapsed dark matter halos. Here we show that this effect can significantly alter the predicted luminosity function (LF) of high redshift galaxies. In particular we demonstrate that a stringent constraint on the neutrino mass can be obtained using the well measured galaxy LF and our semianalytic structure formation models. Combining the constraints from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 yr (WMAP7) data with the LF data at z ∼ 4, we get a limit on the sum of the masses of 3 degenerate neutrinos Σmν <0.52 eV at the 95% C.L. The additional constraints using the prior on Hubble constant strengthens this limit to Σmν <0.29 eV at the 95% C.L. This neutrino mass limit is a factor ∼4 improvement compared to the constraint based on the WMAP7 data alone, and as stringent as known limits based on other astronomical observations. As different astronomical measurements may suffer from different set of biases, the method presented here provides a complementary probe of Σmν. We suggest that repeating this exercise on well measured luminosity functions over different redshift ranges can provide independent and tighter constraints on Σmν.
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Source: | Copyright of this article belongs to American Physical Society. |
ID Code: | 55305 |
Deposited On: | 18 Aug 2011 08:19 |
Last Modified: | 18 May 2016 07:37 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page