Cosmological Neutrinos

Abstract

Within the context of hot big-bang cosmology, a cosmic background of presently low energy neutrinos is predicted to exist in concert with the photons of the cosmic background radiation. The number density of the cosmological neutrinos is of the same order as that of the photons of the cosmic background radiation. That makes neutrinos the second most abundant particle species in the universe. In the early universe, when these neutrinos were highly relativistic, their effects in determining the ultimate structure and evolution of the universe were significant.

Comments: 13 pages, 2 figures, To be published in "Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics", edited by F. W. Stecker, in Encyclopedia of Cosmology II, edited by G. G. Fazio, World Scientific Publishing Company, Singapore, 2022