Seedlabs
Source research

Impacts of dark energy on weighing neutrinos after Planck 2015

Xin Zhang · 2016 · 67 citationsRead the paper

We investigate how dark energy properties impact the cosmological limits on the total mass of active neutrinos. We consider two typical, simple dark energy models (that have only one more additional parameter than $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\mathrm{CDM}$), i.e., the $w\mathrm{CDM}$ model and the holographic dark energy (HDE) model, as examples, to make an analysis. In the cosmological fits, we use the Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data, in combination with other low-redshift observations, including the baryon acoustic oscillations, type Ia supernovae, and Hubble constant measurement, as well as the Planck lensing measurements. We find that, once dynamical dark energy is considered, the degeneracy between $\ensuremath{\sum}{m}_{\ensuremath{\nu}}$ and ${H}_{0}$ will be changed, i.e., in the $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\mathrm{CDM}$ model, $\ensuremath{\sum}{m}_{\ensuremath{\nu}}$ is anticorrelated with ${H}_{0}$, but in the $w\mathrm{CDM}$ and HDE models, $\ensuremath{\sum}{m}_{\ensuremath{\nu}}$ becomes positively correlated with ${H}_{0}$. Compared to $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\mathrm{CDM}$, in the $w\mathrm{CDM}$ model the limit on $\ensuremath{\sum}{m}_{\ensuremath{\nu}}$ becomes much looser, but in the HDE model the limit becomes much tighter. In the HDE model, we obtain $\ensuremath{\sum}{m}_{\ensuremath{\nu}}<0.113\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$ (95% C.L.) with the combined data sets, which is perhaps the most stringent upper limit by far on neutrino mass. Thus, our result in the HDE model is nearly ready to diagnose the neutrino mass hierarchy with the current cosmological observations.

What the full text shows

Theory or simulation
  • The Holographic Dark Energy (HDE) model provides the most stringent upper limit on the total mass of active neutrinos. — ∑mν < 0.113 eV (95% C.L.) (Combined Planck TT,TE,EE+lowP, BAO, lensing, SN, and H0 data)
  • The wCDM model results in a looser upper limit on neutrino mass compared to ΛCDM. — ∑mν < 0.304 eV vs < 0.197 eV (95% C.L.) (Combined Planck TT,TE,EE+lowP, BAO, lensing, SN, and H0 data)
  • Introduction of dynamical dark energy (wCDM and HDE) changes the correlation between neutrino mass and the Hubble constant. — Positive correlation vs anti-correlation in ΛCDM (Cosmological fits using Planck 2015 and low-redshift data)
  • Neutrino mass is anti-correlated with the dark energy parameters w (in wCDM) and c (in HDE). (Two-dimensional posterior distribution contours)
Setup
Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data, BAO (6dFGS, SDSS MGS, BOSS LOWZ, BOSS CMASS), JLA Type Ia supernovae, Hubble constant (H0 = 70.6 ± 3.3 km s−1 Mpc−1), and Planck lensing measurements.
How
The authors performed cosmological parameter estimation using the CosmoMC package and the PPF framework in CAMB to handle perturbation divergence. They compared three models (ΛCDM, wCDM, and HDE) by fitting them to a combination of CMB and low-redshift observational data.
Limitations
Excluded RSD, WL, and galaxy cluster counts due to uncontrolled systematics. · Limited to simple dark energy models with only one additional parameter beyond ΛCDM.

Summarized by Gemma 4 from the open-access full text · 7 Oct 2026. Read it