Search for sterile neutrinos in holographic dark energy cosmology: Reconciling Planck observation with the local measurement of the Hubble constant

TL;DR

The paper tackles the tension between Planck CMB inferences and local Hubble constant measurements by investigating a holographic dark energy (HDE) cosmology that includes sterile neutrinos. It performs a global fit to the HDE+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ model using Planck TT+lowP, BAO, SN, RSD, WL, CMB lensing, and the Riess $H_0$ prior, with perturbations treated via the parameterized post-Friedmann framework. Without the $H_0$ prior, the fit yields $H_0\approx69.8$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ and upper limits $N_{\rm eff}<4.03$ and $m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}<0.496$ eV; including the $H_0$ measurement shifts to $N_{\rm eff}=3.76\pm0.26$, $m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}<0.215$ eV and $H_0=71.20\pm1.20$, with a $2.75\sigma$ detection of $\Delta N_{\rm eff}>0$. This all-data result reduces the Planck–Riess tension to about $0.85\sigma$ and favors a massless or very light sterile neutrino within the HDE framework. Overall, the work shows that dynamical dark energy combined with sterile neutrinos can more effectively reconcile CMB and local measurements and informs sterile neutrino phenomenology in non-$\Lambda$CDM cosmologies.

Abstract

We search for sterile neutrinos in the holographic dark energy cosmology by using the latest observational data. To perform the analysis, we employ the current cosmological observations, including the cosmic microwave background temperature power spectrum data from the Planck mission, the baryon acoustic oscillation measurements, the type Ia supernova data, the redshift space distortion measurements, the shear data of weak lensing observation, the Planck lensing measurement, and the latest direct measurement of $H_0$ as well. We show that, compared to the $Λ$CDM cosmology, the holographic dark energy cosmology with sterile neutrinos can relieve the tension between the Planck observation and the direct measurement of $H_0$ much better. Once we include the $H_0$ measurement in the global fit, we find that the hint of the existence of sterile neutrinos in the holographic dark energy cosmology can be given. Under the constraint of the all-data combination, we obtain $N_{\rm eff}= 3.76\pm0.26$ and $m_{ν,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}< 0.215\,\rm eV$, indicating that the detection of $ΔN_{\rm eff}>0$ in the holographic dark energy cosmology is at the $2.75σ$ level and the massless or very light sterile neutrino is favored by the current observations.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: The one-dimensional marginalized distributions of $H_0$ for HDE+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ (red solid curve), $\Lambda$CDM+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ (green dashed), HDE (blue dashed-dotted) and $\Lambda$CDM (purple dotted) under the constraints of the CMB+BAO+SN+RSD+WL+lensing data combination. The result of the latest local measurement of Hubble constant ($H_{0}=73.00\pm1.75 ~\rm km ~s^{-1} ~Mpc^{-1}$) is shown by the grey band.
• Figure 2: Two-dimensional joint, marginalized constraints (68% and 95% confidence level) on the $\Lambda$CDM+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ (red) and the HDE+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ (blue) models from the data combination of CMB+BAO+SN+RSD+WL+lensing. The constraint results in the $H_{0}-N_{\rm eff}$ ( left) and $m _{\nu, \rm sterile}^{\rm eff}-N_{\rm eff}$ ( right) planes are shown.
• Figure 3: Two-dimensional joint, marginalized constraints (68% and 95% confidence level) on the HDE+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ (red) and HDE (blue) models from the data combination of CMB+BAO+SN+RSD+WL+lensing. The constraint results in the $H_{0}-c$ plane are shown.
• Figure 4: Joint, marginalized constraints from CMB+BAO+SN+RSD+WL+lensing+$H_{0}$ on the HDE+$N_{\rm eff}$+$m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ model. One-dimensional marginalized distributions and two-dimensional contours (68% and 95% CL) for the parameters $H_{0}$, $N_{\rm eff}$, $m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}$ and $c$ are shown.