The Clustering of Galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Signs of Neutrino Mass in Current Cosmological Data Sets

Author

Florian Beutler
Shun Saito, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyFollow
For full list of authors, see publisher's website.

Abstract

We investigate the cosmological implications of the latest growth of structure measurement from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) CMASS Data Release 11 with particular focus on the sum of the neutrino masses, Σm_v. We examine the robustness of the cosmological constraints from the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale, the Alcock-Paczynski effect and redshift-space distortions (D_V/r_s, F_AP, fσ₈) of Beutler et al., when introducing a neutrino mass in the power spectrum template. We then discuss how the neutrino mass relaxes discrepancies between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and other low-redshift measurements within Λ cold dark matter. Combining our cosmological constraints with 9-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP9) yields Σm_v = 0.36 ± 0.14 eV (68 per cent c.l.), which represents a 2.6σ preference for non-zero neutrino mass. The significance can be increased to 3.3σ when including weak lensing results and other BAO constraints, yielding Σm_v = 0.35 ± 0.10 eV (68 per cent c.l.). However, combining CMASS with Planck data reduces the preference for neutrino mass to ~2σ. When removing the CMB lensing effect in the Planck temperature power spectrum (by marginalizing over A_L, we see shifts of ~1σ in σ₈ and Ω_m, which have a significant effect on the neutrino mass constraints. In the case of CMASS plus Planck without the A_L lensing signal, we find a preference for a neutrino mass of Σm_v = 0.34 ± 0.14 eV (68 per cent c.l.), in excellent agreement with the WMAP9+CMASS value. The constraint can be tightened to 3.4σ yielding Σm_v = 0.36 ± 0.10 eV (68 per cent c.l.) when weak lensing data and other BAO constraints are included.

Recommended Citation

F. Beutler et al., "The Clustering of Galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Signs of Neutrino Mass in Current Cosmological Data Sets," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 444, no. 4, pp. 3501 - 3516, Oxford University Press, Mar 2014.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1702

Department(s)

Physics

Keywords and Phrases

Cosmological parameters; Cosmology: observations; Large-scale structure of universe; Surveys

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0035-8711; 1365-2966

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2014 The Authors, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Mar 2014