First Detection of the Acoustic Oscillation Phase Shift Expected from the Cosmic Neutrino Background

Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Aug 28;115(9):091301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.091301. Epub 2015 Aug 26.

Abstract

The unimpeded relativistic propagation of cosmological neutrinos prior to recombination of the baryon-photon plasma alters gravitational potentials and therefore the details of the time-dependent gravitational driving of acoustic oscillations. We report here a first detection of the resulting shifts in the temporal phase of the oscillations, which we infer from their signature in the cosmic microwave background temperature power spectrum.