Extra relativistic degrees of freedom without extra particles using Planck data

Understand

A recent number of analysis of cosmological data have shown indications for the presence of extra radiation beyond the standard model at equality and nucleosynthesis epoch, which has been usually interpreted as an effective number of neutrinos, Neff > 3.046.

• In this work we establish the theoretical basis for a particle physics-motivated model (Bound Dark Matter, BDM) which explain the need of extra radiation.
• The BDM model describes dark matter particles which are relativistic at a scale below a < ac, these particles acquire mass with an initial velocity, vc, at scales a > ac due to non-perturbative methods, as protons and neutrons do, this process is described by a time dependent equation of state, w_bdm(a).
• Owing to this behavior the amount of extra radiation change as a function of the scale factor, this entail that the extra relativistic degrees of freedom Nex may also vary as a function of the scale factor.