Search

Objectives. To evaluate the results of implementing a classification system based on adjusted clinical groups (ACG) at a primary health care (PHC) in a Spanish population. Methods. A retrospective, cross-sectional study based on the computerized medical records of outpatients seen in 2007 by the La Roca clinic, administered by a health services management company in La Roca del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain. The ACGs were formed according to the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification. The relative weight of each ACG's total average cost was calculated (in U.S. dollars) and based on these, the resources usage levels were established. The risk index (RI) and efficiency index (EI) for 2006 and the classification's explanatory power were determined. Results. A total of 8 294 patients were studied (82.7% coverage), with an average of 4.1 incidents per patient, 6.9 visits per patient, and 5.7 visits per person per year. Seven GCAs accounted for 51.0% of patients seen. The RI was 1.015, the EI was 0.975 visits, and the explanatory power of the ACG classification was 53.4% for visits and 74.8% for incidents. Conclusions. The ACG system allowed this patient population to be grouped by clinical status, which can help to, among other things, allocate resources and evaluate PHC team efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the maximum possible strength of the global 21-cm absorption dip on the cosmic background radiation at high-redshift caused by the atomic intergalactic medium, when the Lyman-α coupling is maximum, assuming no exotic cooling mechanisms from interactions with dark matter. This maximum absorption is limited by three inevitable factors that need to be accounted for: (a) heating by energy transferred from the cosmic background radiation to the hydrogen atoms via 21-cm transitions, dubbed as 21-cm heating; (b) Lyα heating by scatterings of Lyα photons from the first stars; (c) the impact of the expected density fluctuations in the intergalactic gas in standard cold dark matter theory, which reduces the mean 21-cm absorption signal. Inclusion of this third novel effect reduces the maximum global 21-cm absorption by ∼10%. Overall, the three effects studied here reduce the 21-cm global absorption by ∼20% at z≃17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discoveries of a number of binary black hole mergers by LIGO and VIRGO have reinvigorated the interest that primordial black holes (PBHs) of tens of solar masses could contribute non-negligibly to the dark matter energy density. Should even a small population of PBHs with masses ≳O(M⊙) exist, they could profoundly impact the properties of the intergalactic medium and provide insight into novel processes at work in the early Universe. We demonstrate here that observations of the 21-cm transition in neutral hydrogen during the epochs of reionization and cosmic dawn will likely provide one of the most stringent tests of solar mass PBHs. In the context of 21-cm cosmology, PBHs give rise to three distinct observable effects: (i) the modification to the primordial power spectrum (and thus also the halo mass function) induced by Poisson noise, (ii) a uniform heating and ionization of the intergalactic medium via x-rays produced during accretion, and (iii) a local modification to the temperature and density of the ambient medium surrounding isolated PBHs. Using a four-parameter astrophysical model, we show that experiments like SKA and HERA could potentially improve upon existing constraints derived using observations of the cosmic microwave background by more than 1 order of magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dark matter interactions with massless or very light standard model particles, as photons or neutrinos, may lead to a suppression of the matter power spectrum at small scales and of the number of low mass haloes. Bounds on the dark matter scattering cross section with light degrees of freedom in such interacting dark matter (IDM) scenarios have been obtained from e.g., early time cosmic microwave background physics and large scale structure observations. Here we scrutinize dark matter microphysics in light of the claimed 21 cm EDGES 78 MHz absorption signal. IDM is expected to delay the 21 cm absorption features due to collisional damping effects. We identify the astrophysical conditions under which the existing constraints on the dark matter scattering cross section could be largely improved due to the IDM imprint on the 21 cm signal, providing also an explicit comparison to the WDM scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of mX>1.3 keV, or ms>5.5 keV for the case of sterile neutrinos nonresonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90% confidence level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropy power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) seem to indicate that the naive expectation for the slow-roll hierarchy within the most simple inflationary paradigm may not be respected in nature. We show that a primordial power spectrum with localized features could in principle give rise to the observed slow-roll anarchy when fitted to a featureless power spectrum. From a model comparison perspective, and assuming that nature has chosen a featureless primordial power spectrum, we find that, while with mock Planck data there is only weak evidence against a model with localized features, upcoming CMB missions may provide compelling evidence against such a nonstandard primordial power spectrum. This evidence could be reinforced if a featureless primordial power spectrum is independently confirmed from bispectrum and/or galaxy clustering measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simplest models of inflation predict small non-Gaussianities and a featureless power spectrum. However, there exist a large number of well-motivated theoretical scenarios in which large non- Gaussianties could be generated. In general, in these scenarios the primordial power spectrum will deviate from its standard power law shape. We study, in a model-independent manner, the constraints from future large-scale structure surveys on the local non-Gaussianity parameter fNL when the standard power law assumption for the primordial power spectrum is relaxed. If the analyses are restricted to the largescale- dependent bias induced in the linear matter power spectrum by non-Gaussianites, the errors on the fNL parameter could be increased by 60% when exploiting data from the future DESI survey, if dealing with only one possible dark matter tracer. In the same context, a nontrivial bias ∣δfNL∣ ~2.5 could be induced if future data are fitted to the wrong primordial power spectrum. Combining all the possible DESI objects slightly ameliorates the problem, as the forecasted errors on fNL would be degraded by 40% when relaxing the assumptions concerning the primordial power spectrum shape. Also, the shift on the non-Gaussianity parameter is reduced in this case, ∣δfNL∣ ~ 1-6. The addition of cosmic microwave background priors ensures robust future fNL bounds, as the forecasted errors obtained including these measurements are almost independent on the primordial power spectrum features, and ∣δfNL∣ ~ 0.2, close to the standard single-field slow-roll paradigm prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A full energy and flavor-dependent analysis of the three-year high-energy IceCube neutrino events is presented. By means of multidimensional fits, we derive the current preferred values of the high-energy neutrino flavor ratios, the normalization and spectral index of the astrophysical fluxes, and the expected atmospheric background events, including a prompt component. A crucial assumption resides on the choice of the energy interval used for the analyses, which significantly biases the results. When restricting ourselves to the ~30 TeV-3 PeV energy range, which contains all the observed IceCube events, we find that the inclusion of the spectral information improves the fit to the canonical flavor composition at Earth, (1:1:1)⊕, with respect to a single-energy bin analysis. Increasing both the minimum and the maximum deposited energies has dramatic effects on the reconstructed flavor ratios as well as on the spectral index. Imposing a higher threshold of 60 TeV yields a slightly harder spectrum by allowing a larger muon neutrino component, since above this energy most atmospheric tracklike events are effectively removed. Extending the high-energy cutoff to fully cover the Glashow resonance region leads to a softer spectrum and a preference for tau neutrino dominance, as none of the expected electron (anti)neutrino induced showers have been observed so far. The lack of showers at energies above 2 PeV may point to a broken power-law neutrino spectrum. Future data may confirm or falsify whether the recently discovered high-energy neutrino fluxes and the long-standing detected cosmic rays have a common origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of a nonminimal coupling of the inflaton to the Ricci scalar, 12ξRϕ², on the inflationary predictions. Such a nonminimal coupling is expected to be present in the inflaton Lagrangian on fairly general grounds. As a case study, we focus on the simplest inflationary model governed by the potential V∝ϕ2, using the latest combined 2015 analysis of Planck and the BICEP2/Keck Array. We find that the presence of a coupling ξ is favored at a significance of 99% C.L., assuming that nature has chosen the potential V∝ϕ² to generate the primordial perturbations and a number of e-foldings N=60. Within the context of the same scenario, we find that the value of ξ is different from zero at the 2σ level. When considering the cross-correlation polarization spectra from the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck, a value of r=0.038+0.039−0.030 is predicted in this particular nonminimally coupled scenario. Future cosmological observations may therefore test these values of r and verify or falsify the nonminimally coupled model explored here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we analyze two possible alternative and model-independent approaches to describe the inflationary period. The first one assumes a general equation of state during inflation due to Mukhanov, while the second one is based on the slow-roll hierarchy suggested by Hoffman and Turner. We find that, remarkably, the two approaches are equivalent from the observational viewpoint, as they single out the same areas in the parameter space, and agree with the inflationary attractors where successful inflation occurs. Rephrased in terms of the familiar picture of a slowly rolling, canonically normalized scalar field, the resulting inflaton excursions in these two approaches are almost identical. Furthermore, once the Galactic dust polarization data from Planck are included in the numerical fits, inflaton excursions can safely take sub-Planckian values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the great progress of current cosmological measurements, the nature of the dominant component of the Universe, coined dark energy, is still an open question. Early dark energy is a possible candidate which may also alleviate some fine-tuning issues of the standard paradigm. Using the latest available cosmological data, we find that the 95% C.L. upper bound on the early dark energy density parameter is ΩeDE < 0.009. On the other hand, the dark energy component may be a stressed and inhomogeneous fluid. If this is the case, the effective sound speed and the viscosity parameters are unconstrained by current data. Future omniscopelike 21 cm surveys, combined with present cosmic microwave background data, could be able to distinguish between standard quintessence scenarios from other possible models with 2σ significance, assuming a non-negligible early dark energy contribution. The precision achieved on the ΩeDE. parameter from these 21 cm probes could be below O(10%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revisit the cosmological viability of the Hu-Sawicki modified gravity scenario. The impact of such a modification on the different cosmological observables, including gravitational waves, is carefully described. The most recent cosmological data, as well as constraints on the relationship between the clustering parameter σ8 and the current matter mass-energy density Ωm from cluster number counts and weak lensing tomography, are considered in our numerical calculations. The strongest bound we find is lƒ R0l < 3.7 x 10-6 at 95% C.L. Forthcoming cluster surveys covering 10000 deg² in the sky, with galaxy surface densities of O(10) arcmin-2 could improve the precision in the σ-Ωm relationship, tightening the above constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inflation is the leading theory to describe elegantly the initial conditions that led to structure formation in our Universe. In this paper, we present a novel phenomenological fit to the Planck, WMAP polarization (WP) and the BICEP2 data sets using an alternative parametrization. Instead of starting from inflationary potentials and computing the inflationary observables, we use a phenomenological parametrization due to Mukhanov, describing inflation by an effective equation of state, in terms of the number of e-folds and two phenomenological parameters α and ß. Within such a parametrization, which captures the different inflationary models in a model-independent way, the values of the scalar spectral index ns, its running and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r are predicted, given a set of parameters (α,ß). We perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis of these parameters, and we show that the combined analysis of Planck and WP data favors the Starobinsky and Higgs inflation scenarios. Assuming that the BICEP2 signal is not entirely due to foregrounds, the addition of this last data set prefers instead the Φ² chaotic models. The constraint we get from Planck and WP data alone on the derived tensor-to-scalar ratio is r < 0.18 at 95% C.L., value which is consistent with the one quoted from the BICEP2 Collaboration analysis, r = 0.16-0.05+0-06, after foreground subtraction. This is not necessarily at odds with the 2σ tension found between Planck and BICEP2 measurements when analyzing data in terms of the usual ns and r parameters, given that the parametrization used here, for the preferred value ns - 0.96, allows only for a restricted parameter space in the usual (ns, r) plane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present here up-to-date neutrino mass limits exploiting the most recent cosmological data sets. By making use of the cosmic microwave background temperature fluctuation and polarization measurements, supernovae Ia luminosity distances, baryon acoustic oscillation observations and determinations of the growth rate parameter, we are able to set the most constraining bound to date, ∑mν < 0.09 eV at 95% C.L. This very tight limit is obtained without the assumption of any prior on the value of the Hubble constant and highly compromises the viability of the inverted mass ordering as the underlying neutrino mass pattern in nature. The results obtained here further strengthen the case for very large multitracer spectroscopic surveys as unique laboratories for cosmological relics, such as neutrinos: that would be the case of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey and of the Euclid mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extra dark radiation component can be present in the universe in the form of sterile neutrinos, axions or other very light degrees of freedom which may interact with the dark matter sector. We derive here the cosmological constraints on the dark radiation abundance, on its effective velocity and on its viscosity parameter from current data in dark radiation-dark matter coupled models. The cosmological bounds on the number of extra dark radiation species do not change significantly when considering interacting schemes. We also find that the constraints on the dark radiation effective velocity are degraded by an order of magnitude while the errors on the viscosity parameter are a factor of two larger when considering interacting scenarios. If future Cosmic Microwave Background data are analyzed assuming a non-interacting model but the dark radiation and the dark matter sectors interact in nature, the reconstructed values for the effective velocity and for the viscosity parameter will be shifted from their standard 1 /3 expectation, namely c2ff = and c2is = 0.29... at 95% C.L. for the future COrE mission data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses and on the effective number of neutrino species in standard and nonstandard scenarios are computed using the most recent available cosmological data. Our cosmological data sets include the measurement of the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the data release 9 CMASS sample of the baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey. We study in detail the different degeneracies among the parameters, as well as the impact of the different data sets used in the analyses. When considering bounds on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, the information in the BAO signal from galaxy clustering measurements is approximately equally powerful as the shape information from the matter power spectrum. The most stringent bound we find is ∑ <0.32 eV at 95% C.L. When nonstandard neutrino scenarios with Neff massless or massive neutrino species are examined, power spectrum shape measurements provide slightly better bounds than the BAO signal only, due to the breaking of parameter degeneracies. Cosmic microwave background data from high multipoles from the South Pole Telescope turns out to be crucial for extracting the number of effective neutrino species. Recent baryon oscillation spectroscopid survey data combined with cosmic microwave back- ground and Hubble Space Telescope measurements give Neff = 3.66+0.20+0.70-0.21-0.69 in the massless neutrino scenario, and similar results are obtained in the massive case. The evidence for extra radiation Neff > 3 often claimed in the literature therefore remains at the 2cr level when considering up-to-date cosmological data sets. Measurements from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe combined with a prior on the Hubble parameter from the Hubble Space Telescope are very powerful in qonstrairnng either the sum of the three active neutrino masses or the number of massless neutrino species. If the former two parameters are allowed to freely vary, however, the bounds from the combination of these two cosmological probes get worse by an order of magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate generalized interacting dark matter-dark energy scenarios with a time-dependent coupling parameter, allowing also for freedom in the neutrino sector. The models are tested in the phantom and quintessence regimes, characterized by equations of state, wx<-1 and wx>-1, respectively. Our analyses show that for some of the scenarios, the existing tensions on the Hubble constant H0 and on the clustering parameter S8 can be significantly alleviated. The relief is either due to (a) a dark energy component which lies within the phantom region or (b) the presence of a dynamical coupling in quintessence scenarios. The inclusion of massive neutrinos into the interaction schemes does not affect either the constraints on the cosmological parameters or the bounds on the total number or relativistic degrees of freedom Neff, which are found to be extremely robust and, in general, strongly consistent with the canonical prediction Neff=3.045. The most stringent bound on the total neutrino mass Mν is Mν<0.116 eV and it is obtained within a quintessence scenario in which the matter mass-energy density is only mildly affected by the presence of a dynamical dark sector coupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore possible extensions of interacting dark energy cosmologies, where dark energy and dark matter interact nongravitationally with one another. In particular, we focus on the neutrino sector, analyzing the effect of both neutrino masses and the effective number of neutrino species. We consider the Planck 2018 legacy release data combined with several other cosmological probes, finding no evidence for new physics in the dark radiation sector. The current neutrino constraints from cosmology should therefore be regarded as robust, as they are not strongly dependent on the dark sector physics, once all the available observations are combined. Namely, we find a total neutrino mass Mν<0.15 eV and a number of effective relativistic degrees of freedom Neff=3.03-0.33+0.33, both at 95% C.L., which are close to those obtained within the ΛCDM cosmology, Mν<0.12 eV and Neff=3.00-0.35+0.36, for the same data combination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore whether nonstandard dark sector physics might be required to solve the existing cosmological tensions. The properties we consider in combination are (a) an interaction between the dark matter and dark energy components and (b) a dark energy equation of state w different from that of the canonical cosmological constant w=-1. In principle, these two parameters are independent. In practice, to avoid early-time, superhorizon instabilities, their allowed parameter spaces are correlated. Moreover, a clear degeneracy exists between these two parameters in the case of cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. We analyze three classes of extended interacting dark energy models in light of the 2019 Planck CMB results and Cepheid-calibrated local distance ladder H0 measurements of Riess et al. (R19), as well as recent baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) and type Ia supernovae (SNeIa) distance data. We find that in quintessence coupled dark energy models, where w>-1, the evidence for a nonzero coupling between the two dark sectors can surpass the 5s significance. Moreover, for both Planck+BAO or Planck+SNeIa, we find a preference for w>-1 at about three standard deviations. Quintessence models are, therefore, in excellent agreement with current data when an interaction is considered. On the other hand, in phantom coupled dark energy models, there is no such preference for a nonzero dark sector coupling. All the models we consider significantly raise the value of the Hubble constant, easing the H0 tension. In the interacting scenario, the disagreement between Planck+BAO and R19 is considerably reduced from 4.3s in the case of the Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model to about 2.5s. The addition of low-redshift BAO and SNeIa measurements leaves, therefore, some residual tension with R19 but at a level that could be justified by a statistical fluctuation. Bayesian evidence considerations mildly disfavor both the coupled quintessence and phantom models, while mildly favoring a coupled vacuum scenario, even when late-time datasets are considered. We conclude that nonminimal dark energy cosmologies, such as coupled quintessence, phantom, or vacuum models, are still an interesting route toward softening existing cosmological tensions, even when low-redshift datasets and Bayesian evidence considerations are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using some of the latest cosmological data sets publicly available, we derive the strongest bounds in the literature on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, Mν, within the assumption of a background flat ΛCDM cosmology. In the most conservative scheme, combining Planck cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data, as well as the up-to-date constraint on the optical depth to reionization (τ), the tightest 95% confidence level upper bound we find is Mν<0.151 eV. The addition of Planck high-ℓ polarization data, which, however, might still be contaminated by systematics, further tightens the bound to Mν<0.118 eV. A proper model comparison treatment shows that the two aforementioned combinations disfavor the inverted hierarchy at ∼64%  C.L. and ∼71% C.L., respectively. In addition, we compare the constraining power of measurements of the full-shape galaxy power spectrum versus the BAO signature, from the BOSS survey. Even though the latest BOSS full-shape measurements cover a larger volume and benefit from smaller error bars compared to previous similar measurements, the analysis method commonly adopted results in their constraining power still being less powerful than that of the extracted BAO signal. Our work uses only cosmological data; imposing the constraint Mν>0.06 eV from oscillations data would raise the quoted upper bounds by O(0.1σ) and would not affect our conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most recent measurements of the temperature and low-multipole polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background from the Planck satellite, when combined with galaxy clustering data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey in the form of the full shape of the power spectrum, and with baryon acoustic oscillation measurements, provide a 95% confidence level (C.L.) upper bound on the sum of the three active neutrinos ∑mν<0.183 eV, among the tightest neutrino mass bounds in the literature, to date, when the same data sets are taken into account. This very same data combination is able to set, at ~70% C.L., an upper limit on ∑mν of 0.0968 eV, a value that approximately corresponds to the minimal mass expected in the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy scenario. If high-multipole polarization data from Planck is also considered, the 95% C.L. upper bound is tightened to ∑mν<0.176 eV. Further improvements are obtained by considering recent measurements of the Hubble parameter. These limits are obtained assuming a specific nondegenerate neutrino mass spectrum; they slightly worsen when considering other degenerate neutrino mass schemes. Low-redshift quantities, such as the Hubble constant or the reionization optical depth, play a very important role when setting the neutrino mass constraints. We also comment on the eventual shifts in the cosmological bounds on ∑mν when possible variations in the former two quantities are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the cosmological bounds on the thermal axion mass in an extended cosmological scenario in which the primordial power spectrum of scalar perturbations differs from the usual power-law shape predicted by the simplest inflationary models. The power spectrum is instead modeled by means of a "piecewise cubic Hermite interpolating polynomial" (pchip). When using cosmic microwave background measurements combined with other cosmological data sets, the thermal axion mass constraints are degraded only slightly. The addition of the measurements of σ8 and Ωm from the 2013 Planck cluster catalog on galaxy number counts relaxes the bounds on the thermal axion mass, mildly favoring a ~1 eV axion mass, regardless of the model adopted for the primordial power spectrum. However, in general, such a preference disappears if the sum of the three active neutrino masses is also considered as a free parameter in our numerical analyses, due to the strong correlation between the masses of these two hot thermal relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the axion dark matter scenario (ADM), in which axions account for all of the dark matter in the Universe, in light of the most recent cosmological data. In particular, we use the Planck temperature data, complemented by WMAP E-polarization measurements, as well as the recent BICEP2 observations of B- modes. Baryon acoustic oscillation data, including those from the baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey, are also considered in the numerical analyses. We find that, in the minimal ADM scenario and for ΛQCD=200 MeV, the full data set implies that the axion mass ma=82.2±1.1 μeV [corresponding to the Peccei-Quinn symmetry being broken at a scale fa=(7.54±0.10)×1010 GeV], or ma=76.6±2.6 μeV [fa= (8.08±0.27)×1010 GeV] when we allow for a nonstandard effective number of relativistic species Neff. We also find a 2σ preference for Neff>3.046. The limit on the sum of neutrino masses is ∑mν<0.25 eV at 95% C.L. for Neff=3.046, or ∑mν<0.47 eV when Neff is a free parameter. Considering extended scenarios where either the dark energy equation-of-state parameter w, the tensor spectral index nt, or the running of the scalar index dns/dlnk is allowed to vary does not change significantly the axion mass-energy density constraints. However, in the case of the full data set exploited here, there is a preference for a nonzero tensor index or scalar running, driven by the different tensor amplitudes implied by the Planck and BICEP2 observations. We also study the effect on our estimates of theoretical uncertainties, in particular the imprecise knowledge of the QCD scale ΛQCD, in the calculation of the temperature-dependent axion mass. We find that in the simplest ADM scenario the Planck+WP data set implies that the axion mass ma=63.7±1.2 μeV for ΛQCD=400 MeV. We also comment on the possibility that axions do not make up for all the dark matter, or that the contribution of string- produced axions has been grossly underestimated; in that case, the values that we find for the mass can conservatively be considered as lower limits. Dark matter axions with mass in the 60–80 μeV (corresponding to an axion-photon coupling Gaγγ~10–14 GeV–1) range can, in principle, be detected by looking for axion-to-photon conversion occurring inside a tunable microwave cavity permeated by a high-intensity magnetic field, and operating at a frequency ν≃15–20 GHz. This is out of the reach of current experiments like the axion dark matter experiment (limited to a maximum frequency of a few GHzs), but is, on the other hand, within the reach of the upcoming axion dark matter experiment-high frequency experiment that will explore the 4–40 GHz frequency range and then be sensitive to axion masses up to ~160 μeV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present up-to-date cosmological bounds on the sum of active neutrino masses as well as on extended cosmological scenarios with additional thermal relics, as thermal axions or sterile neutrino species. Our analyses consider all the current available cosmological data in the beginning of year 2014, including the very recent and most precise baryon acoustic oscillation measurements from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. In the minimal three-active-neutrino scenario, we find ∑mν<0.22  eV at 95% C.L. from the combination of cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryon acoustic oscillation, and Hubble Space Telescope measurements of the Hubble constant. A nonzero value for the sum of the three active neutrino masses of ~0.3 eV is significantly favored at more than three standard deviations when adding the constraints on σ8 and Ωm from the Planck cluster catalog on galaxy number counts. This preference for nonzero thermal relic masses disappears almost completely in both the thermal axion and massive sterile neutrino schemes. Extra light species contribute to the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom, parametrized via Neff. We found that when the recent detection of B mode polarization from the BICEP2 experiment is considered, an analysis of the combined CMB data in the framework of LCDM+r models gives Neff=3.90±0.42, suggesting the presence of an extra relativistic relic at more than 95% C.L. from CMB-only data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present here bounds on neutrino masses from the combination of recent Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements and galaxy clustering information from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-Ill. We use the full shape of either the photometric angular clustering (Data Release 8) or the 3D spectroscopic clustering (Data Release 9) power spectrum in different cosmological scenarios. In the ACDM scenario, spectroscopic galaxy clustering measurements improve significantly the existing neutrino mass bounds from Planck data. We find S mv < 0.39 eV at 95% confidence level for the combination of the 3D power spectrum with Planck CMB data (wi lensing included) and Wilkinson Microwave Anisoptropy Probe 9-year polarization measurements. Therefore, robust neutrino mass constraints can be obtained without the addition of the prior on the Hubble constant from Hubble Space Telescope. In extended cosmological scenarios with a dark energy fluid or with nonflat geometries, galaxy clustering measurements are essential to pin down the neutrino mass bounds, providing in the majority of cases better results than those obtained from the associated measurement of the baryon acoustic oscillation scale only. In the presence of a freely varying (constant) dark energy equation of state, we find S mv < 0.49 eV at 95% confidence level for the combination of the 3D power spectrum with Planck CMB data (with lensing included) and Wilkinson Microwave Anisoptropy Probe 9-year polarization measurements. This same data combination in nonflat geometries provides the neutrino mass bound S mv < 0.35 eV at 95% confidence level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present new constraints on coupled dark energy from the recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropics from the Planck satellite mission. We found that a coupled dark energy model is fully compatible with the Planck measurements, deriving a weak bound on the dark matter-dark energy coupling parameter ξ = -0.49-0.31+0.19 at 68% C.L. Moreover if Planck data are fitted to a coupled dark energy scenario, the constraint on the Hubble constant is relaxed to H0 =72.1-2.3+3.2 km/s/Mpc, solving the tension with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) value. We show that a combined PLANCK + HST analysis provides significant evidence for coupled dark energy finding a nonzero value for the coupling parameter ξ with -0.90 < ξ < -0.22 at 95% C.L. We also consider the combined constraints from the Planck data plus the baryon acoustic oscillation measurements of the 6dF Galaxy Survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Baron Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent cosmic microwave background measurements at high multipoles from the South Pole Telescope and from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope seem to disagree in their conclusions for the neutrino and dark radiation properties. In this paper we set new bounds on the dark radiation and neutrino properties in different cosmological scenarios combining the ACT and SPT data with the nine-year data release of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP-9), baryon acoustic oscillation data, Hubble Telescope measurements of the Hubble constant, and supernovae la luminosity distance data. In the standard three massive neutrino case, the two high multipole probes give similar results if baryon acoustic oscillation data are removed from the analyses and Hubble Telescope measurements are also exploited. A similar result is obtained within a standard cosmology with Neff massless neutrinos, although in this case the agreement between these two measurements is also improved when considering simultaneously baryon acoustic oscillation data and Hubble Space Telescope measurements. In the Neff massive neutrino case the two high multipole probes give very different results regardless of the external data sets used in the combined analyses. When considering extended cosmological scenarios with a dark energy equation of state or with a running of the scalar spectral index, the evidence for neutrino masses found for the South Pole Telescope in the three neutrino scenario disappears for all the data combinations explored here. Again, adding Hubble Telescope data seems to improve the agreement between the two high multipole cosmic microwave background measurements considered here. In the case in which a dark radiation background with unknown clustering properties is also considered, SPT data seem to exclude the standard value for the dark radiation viscosity cvis² = 1/3 at the 2s C.L., finding evidence for massive neutrinos only when combining SPT data with baryon acoustic oscillation measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmological measurements are affected by the energy density of massive neutrinos. We extend here a recent analysis of current cosmological data to nonminimal cosmologies. Several possible scenarios are examined: a constant w ≠ -- 1 dark energy equation of state, a nonflat universe, a time-varying dark energy component and coupled dark matter-dark energy universes or modified gravity scenarios. When considering cosmological data only, (3 + 2) massive neutrino models with ∼0.5 eV sterile species are allowed at 95% confidence level. This scenario has been shown to reconcile reactor, LSND and MiniBooNE positive signals with null results from other searches. Big bang nucleosynthesis bounds could compromise the viability of (3 + 2) models if the two sterile species are fully thermalized states at decoupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]