2001/10/31 by Andrew R. Zentner, Terry P. Walker
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Big Bang (financial markets) #Big Bang nucleosynthesis #COSMIC cancer database #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark energy #Function (biology) #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Nucleosynthesis #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physical cosmology #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Redshift #Supernova #Theoretical physics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.65.063506
published as Phys.Rev. D65 (2002) 063506 · 9 pages, 5 figures. Minor changes to reflect referee's comments. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D. Scheduled for 15 March, 2002
arxiv created 2002/01/03 · openalex publication_date 2002/02/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We discuss bounds on the cosmological relativistic energy density as a function of redshift, reviewing the big bang nucleosynthesis and cosmic microwave background bounds, updating bounds from large scale structure, and introducing a new bound from the magnitude-redshift relation for type Ia supernovae. We conclude that the standard and well-motivated assumption that relativistic energy is negligible during recent epochs is not necessitated by extant data. We then demonstrate the utility of these bounds by constraining the mass and lifetime of a hypothetical massive big bang relic particle.