Revised WMAP constraints on neutrino masses and other extensions of the minimal LambdaCDM model

Abstract

Recently, two issues concerning the three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) likelihood code were pointed out. On large angular scales (l<~30), a suboptimal likelihood approximation resulted in a small power excess. On small angular scales (l>~300), over-subtraction of unresolved point sources produced a small power deficit. For a minimal six-parameter cosmological model, these two effects conspired to decrease the value of ns by ~0.7sigma. In this paper, we study the change in preferred parameter ranges for extended cosmological models, including running of ns, massive neutrinos, curvature, and the equation of state for dark energy. We also include large-scale structure and supernova data in our analysis. We find that the parameter ranges for alphas, Omegak and w are not much altered by the modified analysis. For massive neutrinos the upper limit on the sum of the neutrino masses decreases from Mnu<1.90 eV to Mnu<1.57 eV when using the modified WMAP code and WMAP data only. We also find that the shift of ns to higher values is quite robust to these extensions of the minimal cosmological model.

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