Robust Signatures of the Relic Neutrinos in CMB

Abstract

When the perturbations forming the acoustic peaks of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) reentered the horizon and interacted gravitationally with all the matter, neutrinos presumably comprised 41% of the universe energy. CMB experiments have reached a capacity to probe this background of relic neutrinos. I review the neutrino impact on the CMB at the onset of the acoustic oscillations. The discussion addresses the underlying physics, robustness or degeneracy of the neutrino imprints with changes of free cosmological parameters, and non-minimal models for the unseen radiation sector with detectable signatures in CMB anisotropy and polarization.