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    Constraining neutrino mass with the void weak lensing effect

    Wenshuo Xu1,*, Cheng Zhao1,†, Chen Su2,3, Huanyuan Shan2,3, and Yu Liu1,4

    • *Contact author: xws21@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
    • †Contact author: czhao@tsinghua.edu.cn

    Phys. Rev. D 113, 123524 – Published 12 June, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lnph-xck9

    Abstract

    Cosmic voids, the underdense regions of the large-scale structure, provide cosmological information highly complementary to that obtained from overdense regions. In this work, we investigate the constraining power of the void-shear cross-correlation (void lensing effect) on the total neutrino mass. Based on cosmological N-body simulations with varying neutrino masses, we populate BOSS LOWZ-like galaxies at 0.2<z<0.4 using halo occupation distribution fitting, identify voids with the dive void finder, and obtain their density profiles from the underlying dark matter and neutrino distributions. We then generate mock shear catalogs through ray tracing and measure the corresponding void lensing signals, assuming a source number density of 10/arcmin2 and sky area of around 8400  deg2. Under this setup, void lensing independently yields a constraint on total neutrino mass as σ(Mν)=0.096  eV [Mν<0.232  eV, 95% confidence level (CL)] in the absence of shape noise, and σ(Mν)=0.340  eV (Mν<0.707  eV, 95% CL) when adopting a stage-III-like shape noise. Moreover, we find a clear linear relationship between the void lensing signal and neutrino mass. We further validate the forward modeling of the void lensing signal from the void density profiles across different cosmologies, demonstrating its accuracy and potential for future applications. These findings highlight void lensing as a promising probe of massive neutrinos and motivate its applications to galaxy survey data as well as the combination with other cosmological observables.

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