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Extra radiation cosmologies: Implications of the Hubble tension for eV-scale neutrinos

Helena García Escudero* and Kevork N. Abazajian†

  • *Contact author: garciaeh@uci.edu
  • †Contact author: kevork@uci.edu
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 023508 – Published 8 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pwj3-2d26

Abstract

We present a new analysis on sterile neutrino cosmologies using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) second data release baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements in combination with cosmic microwave background (CMB), CMB lensing, and supernova data. We show that BAO observables are intrinsically less sensitive to the combined effects of relativistic energy density, Neff, and the sum of neutrino masses, Σmν, which are both augmented in sterile neutrino cosmologies. With SH0ES local expansion rate, H0, data, we find Neff=3.43±0.13, reducing the Hubble tension to 2.4σ. For a 0.1 eV sterile neutrino, we find Neff=3.50 as the best fit. For this representative Neff, we find an upper limit of ms<0.17  eV (95% CL), greater than a factor of four weaker than standard constraints on Σmν. When SH0ES is included, light sterile neutrinos with masses ms≃0.1–0.2  eV are favored at ≳3σ, whereas eV-scale sterile masses remain strongly excluded by the data in the cosmologies we study. Our findings confirm our previous results that partially thermalized sub-eV sterile neutrinos are preferred by the SH0ES H0 data. The preferred ms mass scale overlaps with, but is not identical to, that favored in neutrino oscillation solutions to short-baseline anomalies.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 023508– Published 8 January, 2026
  • Received 7 October 2025
  • Accepted 10 December 2025
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