We find that the viability of a cosmological model that incorporates 2 sterile neutrinos with masses around 1 eV each, as favored by global neutrino oscillation analyses including short baseline results, is significantly dependent on the choice of datasets included in the analysis and the ability to control the systematic uncertainties associated with these datasets. Our analysis includes a variety of cosmological probes including the cosmic microwave background (WMAP7+SPT), Hubble constant (HST), galaxy power spectrum (SDSS-DR7), and supernova distances (SDSS and Union2 compilations). In the joint observational analysis, our sterile neutrino model is equally favored as a LCDM model when using the MLCS light curve fitter for the supernova measurements, and strongly disfavored by the data at Δχ^2 ~ 18 when using the SALT2 fitter. When excluding the supernova measurements, the sterile neutrino model is disfavored by the other datasets at Δχ^2 ~ 12, and at best becomes mildly disfavored at Δχ^2 ~ 3 when allowing for curvature, evolving dark energy, additional relativistic species, running of the spectral index, and freedom in the primordial helium abundance. No single additional parameter accounts for most of this effect. Therefore, if laboratory experiments continue to favor a scenario with roughly eV mass sterile neutrinos, and if this becomes decisively disfavored by cosmology, then a more exotic cosmological model than explored here may become necessary.
Are Cosmological Data Excluding Sterile Neutrinos or Only the Fully Thermalized Limit?
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul（南里奥格兰德联邦大学）；Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais（国家空间研究所）；University of Sheffield（谢菲尔德大学）；CSIC‐Universitat de València（西班牙高等科学研究理事会-瓦伦西亚大学）；University of Turin（都灵大学）
Constraints on Generalized Gravity-Thermodynamic Cosmology from DESI DR2
University of New South Wales（新南威尔士大学）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram（特里凡得琅印度科学教育研究所）；SISSA-International School for Advanced Studies（SISSA高级国际研究学院）；IFPU, Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe（宇宙基础物理研究所(IFPU)）；INFN, Sezione di Trieste（意大利国家核物理研究院的里雅斯特分部）
