Cosmology with sterile neutrino masses from oscillation experiments

Abstract: There are hints, both from cosmology and from neutrino oscillation experiments, that one or two sterile neutrinos with eV masses are favored. We consider the implications of combining data from short baseline neutrino experiments with cosmological observations. In particular we consider cosmological models where the equation of state of dark energy and the curvature are allowed to vary. We find that the consistency of results from short baseline experiments and cosmology is dependent on the cosmological data sets that are used. When the two are consistent, we find that the inclusion of information from short baseline experiments only mildly affects the preferred values of the cosmological model parameters. A universe with a cosmological constant type dark energy and zero curvature is still fully consistent with the data we use. We also report that a thermalized sterile neutrino in the 10 eV range is fully consistent with a wide range of cosmological data as long as information on the matter power spectrum in not taken into account.