Is a Massive Tau Neutrino Just What Cold Dark Matter Needs?

Abstract

The cold dark matter (CDM) scenario for structure formation in the Universe is very attractive and has many successes; however, when its spectrum of density perturbations is normalized to the COBE anisotropy measurement the level of inhomogeneity predicted on small scales is too large. This can be remedied by a tau neutrino of mass $1\MeV - 10\MeV$ and lifetime $0.1\sec - 100\sec$ whose decay products include electron neutrinos because it allows the total energy density in relativistic particles to be doubled without interfering with nucleosynthesis. The anisotropies predicted on the degree scale for ``$\tau$CDM'' are larger than standard CDM. Experiments at $e^\pm$ colliders may be able to probe such a mass range.