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# A Capture Scenario for Globular Cluster 𝜔 Centauri

## 1 Introduction

Recent advances in understanding the nature of $`\omega `$ Centauri, the most massive Milky Way globular cluster ($`5\times 10^6`$ M, Meylan et al. 1995), have now placed on a firmer ground its accretion origin as opposed to formation within the Milky Way. Unlike the majority of the Milky Way globular clusters, $`\omega `$ Cen is a complex chemical system with an extended star formation history. For instance, the multiple-peak metallicity distribution (e. g., Pancino et al. 2000, the correlation between age and metallicity (e.g., Hughes & Wallerstein 2000), and the s-process heavy-element enhanced enrichment in cluster stars (e.g., Smith et al. 2000) argue for a star formation history of 2 to 4 Gyr. Furthermore, the correlation between the enhancement of s-process elements with metallicity argues for a self-enrichment process within this system (Vanture, Wallerstein & Suntzeff 2002) as opposed to the build-up of the whole system by merging a few chemically distinct fragments. Gnedin et al. (2002) show that the present-day $`\omega `$ Cen is not unique among globular clusters in its ability to retain its own stellar ejecta, but its frequent passages through the Galactic disk should have swept out all of the s-process enriched gas from AGB stars. This is the case for all of the globular clusters within 10 kpc of the Galactic center, but not for $`\omega `$ Cen.

The internal kinematics of $`\omega `$ Cen lend further support to an accretion origin. The cluster rotates relatively rapidly causing an ellipticity of $`0.12`$ (Merritt, Meylan, & Mayor 1997), while most of the Galactic globular clusters have an ellipticity of $`0.03`$ (Majewski et al. 2001). However, the metal rich stars (\[Fe/H\] $`1.2`$) in $`\omega `$ Cen do not share the bulk rotation of the metal poor stars, and have a lower velocity dispersion (Norris et al. 1997). The metal rich stars also show a North-South elongation in contradistinction to the well-known East-West elongation of most of $`\omega `$ Cen’s stars (Pancino et al. 2000). The distinctive features of the metal-rich stars may be related to an accretion event within $`\omega `$ Cen.

The extended star-formation history of $`\omega `$ Cen, the presence of stars formed from AGB-enriched gas, and the evidence of a merger/accretion event point to a formation of $`\omega `$ Cen not only away from the Milky Way, but also at the bottom of the potential well of a massive galaxy. Thus, we wish to explore a previously established hypothesis: $`\omega `$ Cen is the nucleus of a dwarf galaxy captured and disrupted by the Milky Way (Freeman 1993). A dwarf sinking to the center of the Galaxy is subject to dynamical friction with simultaneous mass loss due to the interaction with the Galactic tidal field. All of the dwarf is stripped off except for the nucleus which, presumably, is left with the present-day orbit of $`\omega `$ Cen. This orbit is retrograde, of low energy and low inclination, and highly eccentric. It has an apocenter of only 6.4 kpc, a pericenter of $`1`$ kpc, and a period of 120 Myr (Dinescu, Girard, & van Altena 1999). Can the capture scenario produce the current orbit of $`\omega `$ Cen, and if so, under what conditions? Zhao (2002) made the first attempt to model this accretion event using a semi-analytical calculation. He found that, if the dwarf is launched from 50 kpc from the Galactic center, the remnant will not decay to the present orbit. This is because strong tidal shocks reduce the mass to the point that dynamical friction becomes too inefficient to drag the system to the current low-energy orbit of $`\omega `$ Cen. Zhao’s analysis was simplified by a number of assumptions. For instance, the mass outside the tidal radius is instantaneously stripped, and the bulge and disk contributions to the dynamical drag were not taken into account in the 50-kpc launch. We re-investigate the accretion scenario by means of N-body simulations in order to follow the evolution of a dwarf galaxy falling into the Milky Way.

## 2 The Models

In our simulations, we use the model by Kuijken and Dubinski (1995) that reproduces closely an exact solution of the set of collisionless Boltzmann and Poisson equations. The parameters of the model have been determined based on the observed properties of the Milky Way. We assume the solar radius, the disk exponential scale length, and the disk vertical scale height to be 8 kpc, 3.5 kpc and 245 pc respectively. The circular velocity of the disk at the solar radius is taken to be 220 km s-1. The surface density within 1.1 kpc of the disk plane in the model is equal to 69.8 M pc-2 with the disk contribution being 45.5 Mpc-2. With the generally accepted cutoff radius of the disk of 28 kpc, the disk’s total mass in the model is 5 $`\times `$ 1010 M. The mass of the bulge is 0.75 $`\times `$ 1010 M within 2.4 kpc. The halo is approximated by a lowered isothermal sphere (Binney & Tremaine 1987) with the central potential $`\mathrm{\Psi }(0)/\sigma _0^2=`$8. The halo mass inside 50 kpc is 4.9 $`\times `$ 1011 M which is within the observationally inferred limits 5.4$`{}_{3.6}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.2}`$ (Wilkinson & Evans 1999). A more detailed description of the Milky Way model can be found in Tsuchiya (2002).

We have examined the dynamics of the disrupting dwarf galaxy using two different density profiles: 1) a King profile, or lowered isothermal density distribution (King 1966), and 2) a Hernquist density profile (Hernquist 1990). Our King profile has a deep central potential ($`\mathrm{\Psi }(0)/\sigma _0^2=12`$) with a density distribution in the central regions equivalent to an $`r^2`$ cusp within our numerical resolution. The highly-concentrated King profiles were chosen to model a satellite with a steep central density cusp in an attempt to mimic the nuclear region that would presumably end as an $`\omega `$ Cen-like object. For the King profile, we have examined a set of six models whose total masses and half-mass radii are summarized in Table 1 (K1 through K6). The Hernquist model has a shallower density distribution than the King model, with an $`r^1`$ cusp in the central regions. We have examined nine models of the Henquist profile whose parameters are also listed in Table 1 (H1 through H9). In order to follow the dynamics of the central nucleus of a nucleated dwarf galaxy — as the hypothetical progenitor of $`\omega `$ Cen — we place at the center of our preferred model dwarf galaxy an extended ’particle’ that has a mass of 107 M, and $`r_{1/2}=35`$ pc. We then follow the evolution of the dwarf galaxy and its central ’nucleus’ until the nucleus sinks to an orbit close to the center of the Milky Way. A more detailed description of the simulations and results is given elsewhere (Tsuchia, Korchagin, & Dinescu 2003).

The simulations have been done with the Self Consistent Field (SCF)-tree code that has a detailed description in Tsuchiya (2002). A hierarchical tree algorithm has been used to calculate the dynamics of the softened particles representing the disk, the bulge of the Milky Way, and the dynamics of the dwarf galaxy. We have used 70,000 particles to represent the disk, and 10,000 particles for the bulge. The results presented here make use of a rigid halo, to avoid a long computational time; these models did not take into account dynamical friction on the halo. We have however tested one model (i.e., our preferred one, H4, see Table 1, and the following Section) using a “living” halo. This halo has been modeled with the SCF algorithm (Hernquist & Ostriker 1992). The halo distribution is sampled by 100,000 particles. We have taken the tolerance parameter to be 0.7, and the softening length to be 0.01 of the disk scale length which corresponds to 35 pc in our Milky Way model. We found that the decay time for the simulation with the living halo is shorter than that for the rigid one (1.8 Gyr versus 3 Gyr), but the relation between the satellite’s bound mass and apocenter distance is similar for the two halos (Tsuchia, Korchagin, & Dinescu 2003).

The King model dwarfs are sampled by 50,000 equal-mass particles. For the Hernquist model dwarfs, we adopt a multi-mass N-body model. This is because we need to achieve a better mass resolution in the central regions of the dwarf galaxy, as the Hernquist model undergoes heavy mass loss down to $`10^7`$ M, while the King models stop losing mass at $`10^8`$ M (see the next Section). The Hernquist distribution function has been divided into three energy groups. The lowest energy group is sampled by 50,000 particles with the mass of each particle being 2 $`\times `$ 10-7 of the total mass of the dwarf. The middle and the highest energy groups are sampled by particles with masses 2$`\times `$ 10-6, and 2$`\times `$ 10-5 of the total mass of the dwarf, respectively, and the number of particles in each group is 45,000. The dwarf was hence sampled by 140,000 particles in total. The multi-mass model allows us to achieve a much better resolution of the dynamics of the central regions of the dwarf compared to that given by equal mass models. The dynamics of the central 107 M of the dwarf is therefore sampled by approximately 50,000 particles.

## 3 The Sinking Satellite

To approximately match the current orbit of $`\omega `$ Cen, we have chosen the initial position and velocity of the satellite to be (X, Y, Z) = (50, 0, 30) kpc, and ($`V_X,V_Y,V_Z`$) = (0, -20, 0) km s-1. Here, X is positive away from the Galactic center, Y is positive toward Galactic rotation, and Z is positive toward the north Galactic pole; the Sun is at (X, Y, Z) = (8, 0, 0). Due to the small initial velocity, the dwarf falls into a very eccentric orbit with a typical pericenter of $`1`$ kpc. At each pericentric passage, the dwarf experiences strong shocks mainly from the encounters with the bulge which strip off the dwarf’s outer layers. Simultaneously with the mass loss, the dwarf sinks into a smaller orbit.

The King and the Hernquist models have qualitatively different evolutionary sequences. In Figure 1 we show the bound mass (at apocenter) as a function of the apocentric distance for the King profiles (Fig. 1 a) and for the Hernquist profiles (Fig 1 b). For the same total mass, the King models with higher central densities (Table 1) sink deeper. Once the dwarf mass decreases to $`10^8`$ M, there is practically no more orbital decay. These models lose mass approximately exponentially with time. The ever decreasing mass-loss rate requires a time that is longer than the age of the Galaxy in order to reach a remnant with a bound mass of $`10^7`$ M (Tsuchiya, Korchagin & Dinescu 2003). For the Hernquist model dwarfs the evolutionary sequences (Fig. 1 b) show that the orbit decay stops at a given radius that depends on the central density (see Table 1). The dwarf continues to lose significant mass as opposed to the King models. In fact, all the models but H1 have completely dissolved after a time less than 5 Gyr. From these tests, we have chosen as our best representation of the progenitor of $`\omega `$ Cen, model H4. In Figure 2 we show the galactocentric distance of the center of mass of the tidally bound mass of the disrupting dwarf as a function of time for the model that includes the nucleus, and for the model that doesn’t (see Section 2). After approximately 2 Gyr from the beginning of the simulations, the model with the nucleus establishes itself into a low-energy orbit with pericentric and apocentric distances of about 1 kpc and 6 kpc. The time evolution of the galactocentric radius of the nucleated model illustrates that indeed the nucleus has near-stationary radial oscillations after 2.5 Gyr (Fig. 2). The non-nucleated model is completely disrupted in 2 Gyr. This is more clearly seen in Figure 3, where the mass of the gravitationally bound particles is shown as a function of time for the nucleated model, and the non-nucleated one. After 3 Gyr from the beginning of the simulation, the mass of the gravitationally bound particles surrounding the central nucleus is about 2 $`\times `$ 107 M as can be seen in Figure 3. By 4 Gyr, further stripping decreases the mass of the gravitationally bound mass of the nucleated dwarf to the mass of the central nucleus. We speculate that this is a likely evolutionary history of the progenitor of $`\omega `$ Cen.

In Figure 4 we show a snapshot of the distribution of the stripped material taken at 3 Gyr. The left panel shows the distribution in the Galactic plane, while the right panels shows the distribution perpendicular to the Galactic plane. The stripped particles fill in a flattened, disk-like volume with a radius of about 10 kpc, and a vertical scale height of about 2.5 kpc. The volume density of the stripped matter in the solar neighborhood is low however. The estimated volume density of the stripped matter at $`R`$ 8 kpc is about 2 $`\times `$ 10-5 M pc-3. Dinescu (2002) analyzed the Beers et al. (2000) kinematically unbiased catalog of metal poor stars, and found an excess of RR Lyrae stars in the retrograde sample when compared to the prograde sample. The metallicity range of the sample where this excess was found is \[Fe/H\] = -2.0 to -1.5, and the orbital eccentricities are larger than 0.8 (see Fig. 3 in Dinescu 2002). These properties are representative of $`\omega `$ Cen and its debris characteristics. Specifically, 30 RR Lyrae stars were found in the retrograde sample, and 15 in the prograde one, amounting to an excess of 15 stars within a volume of 175 kpc3. Cseresnjes (2001) estimated a population of $`8400`$ RR Lyrae stars in the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Sgr), assuming that the galaxy lost about 50$`\%`$ of its total mass. Assuming also that RR Lyrae stars trace the light, he estimated an integrated absolute V-magnitude of -14.7 for the whole Sgr system. Estimating the number of RR Lyrae stars in a dwarf galaxy from the integrated absolute V-magnitude, assuming a mass-to-light ratio M/LV of 7 (e. g., Prada & Burkert 2002), and using the density of debris in the solar neighborhood estimated by our preferred model, we obtain a number of 65 RR Lyrae stars in the volume of 175 kpc3. Keeping in mind that the Beers (2000) catalog is not complete, the number of excess RR Lyrae found by Dinescu (2002) is in reasonable agreement with the expected number from $`\omega `$ Cen progenitor’s debris.

## 4 Summary

We have shown that a dwarf satellite with an initial mass of $`8\times 10^9`$ M, a Hernquist density profile of $`r_{1/2}=1.4`$ kpc, and a nucleus of $`10^7`$ M can be dragged to the current low-energy orbit of $`\omega `$ Cen. The remnant is a central nucleus with a mass within a factor of 2 to a few of that of present-day $`\omega `$ Cen. We suggest two refinements to the model to fully reconcile the current mass of $`\omega `$ Cen with that of the remnant. The first one is purely computational in nature: one can explore results from higher-resolution simulations that allow a $`10^6`$ M nucleus. The second one involves a more sophisticated model: one can replace the nucleus with a collection of individual particles in order to follow the mass loss due to frequent disk passages, presumably down to the present-day mass of $`\omega `$ Cen. In fact, Leon, Meylan & Combes (2000) show that $`\omega `$ Cen has tidal tails related to its last passage through the disk, and indicating mass loss.

This study lends support to the hypothesis that $`\omega `$ Cen is the core of a disrupted satellite galaxy captured from the outer halo, and it underlines that the dwarf needs specific initial conditions in order to reproduce $`\omega `$ Cen’s characteristics. Our results do not exclude the scenario proposed by Zhao (2002) where the satellite is captured from the edge of the Galactic disk. This latter scenario however, implies ram-pressure stripping by the Galactic disk, thus challenging the complex abundance pattern that $`\omega `$ Cen possesses. The debris from the parent galaxy forms a disk-like structure within 6 kpc of the Galactic center. Kinematical surveys within 1-2 kpc of the Sun should be able to detect such a structure, as a retrograde feature (Dinescu 2002).

We thank T. Girard for many useful suggestions concerning the calculations and W. van Altena for his comments on the manuscript. This research was supported in part by the NSF under grant AST 0098687. VIK acknowledges R. Spurzem for providing partial support at ARI, Heidelberg through the DFG grant RUS 17/112/02.


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# Anthropic predictions for neutrino masses

## I Introduction

The major ingredients of the Universe are dark energy, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$, and non-relativistic matter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$. The latter consists of non-baryonic dark matter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_D0.25`$, baryons, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B0.05`$, and massive neutrinos, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 0.001`$. The fact that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is comparable to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is deeply puzzling; this is the notorious coincidence problem that has been much discussed in the recent literature. The only plausible explanation that has so far been suggested is that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a stochastic variable and that the coincidence is due to anthropic selection effects. Anthropic bounds on the cosmological constant derived in Davies ; BT ; LindeLambda ; Weinberg87  were followed by anthropic predictions Vilenkin95a ; Efstathiou95 ; Martel98 ; GV  suggesting values not far from the presently observed dark energy density. Although controversial, such anthropic arguments have been bolstered by the discovery of mechanisms that may be capable of creating ensembles with different parameter values in the context of both cosmic inflation AV83 ; Linde86 ; Linde90  and string theory Bousso ; Banks ; Donoghue01 ; Susskind03 , and have been applied to other physical parameters as well CarrRees ; Rees79 ; Linde88a ; Linde88b ; Linde95 ; Bellido95 ; Vilenkin95d ; Vilenkin97 ; Q ; dimensions ; t98 ; Agrawal ; Donoghue98 ; Tanaka ; Mario ; Hogan00 ; Aguirre ; multiverse .

Perhaps equally puzzling are the “coincidences” $`\mathrm{\Omega }_D\mathrm{\Omega }_B`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$. These three matter components are relics of apparently unrelated processes in the early Universe, and it is very surprising that their mass densities are comparable to one another. The mass density of neutrinos is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu =(m_\nu /94\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})h^2`$, where $`m_\nu `$ is the combined mass of all three neutrino flavors. In this paper, we will investigate the possibility that $`m_\nu `$ is a stochastic variable taking different values in different parts of the Universe and that the observed value is anthropically selected.

Before delving into details, let us briefly outline the argument. A small increase of $`m_\nu `$ can have a large effect on galaxy formation. Neutrinos stream out of the potential wells created by cold dark matter and baryons, slowing the growth of density fluctuations. As a result, there will be fewer galaxies (and therefore fewer observers) in regions with larger values of $`m_\nu `$. If the suppression of galaxy formation becomes important for $`m_\nu \stackrel{~}{m}_\nu `$, say, then values $`m_\nu \stackrel{~}{m}_\nu `$ will be rarely observed because the density of galaxies in the corresponding regions is very low. Moreover, unless the underlying particle-physics model strongly skews the neutrino mass distribution towards values near zero, values $`m_\nu \stackrel{~}{m}_\nu `$ are also unlikely to be observed, simply because the corresponding range of $`m_\nu `$-values is very small. A typical observer thus expects to find $`m_\nu \stackrel{~}{m}_\nu `$, i.e., a mild but non-negligible suppression of galaxy formation by neutrinos.

## II Probability distribution for $`m_\nu `$

To make the analysis quantitative, we define the probability distribution $`𝒫(m_\nu )dm_\nu `$ as being proportional to the number of observers in the Universe who will measure $`m_\nu `$ in the interval $`dm_\nu `$. This distribution can be represented as a product Vilenkin95a

$$𝒫(m_\nu )=𝒫_{}(m_\nu )n_{obs}(m_\nu ).$$
(1)
Here, $`𝒫_{}(m_\nu )dm_\nu `$ is the prior distribution, which is proportional to the comoving volume of those parts of the Universe where $`m_\nu `$ takes values in the interval $`dm_\nu `$, and $`n_{obs}(m_\nu )`$ is the number of observers that evolve per unit comoving volume with a given value of $`m_\nu `$. The distribution (1) gives the probability that a randomly selected observer is located in a region where the sum of the three neutrino masses is in the interval $`dm_\nu `$.

Of course we have no idea how to estimate $`n_{obs}`$, but what comes to the rescue is the fact that the value of $`m_\nu `$ does not directly affect the physics and chemistry of life. As a rough approximation, we therefore assume that $`n_{obs}(m_\nu )`$ is simply proportional to the fraction of all baryons that form stars, which we approximate by the fraction $`F_M(m_\nu )`$ of all matter that collapses into galaxy-scale haloes (with mass greater than $`M=10^{12}M_{}`$),

$$n_{obs}(m_\nu )F_M(m_\nu ).$$
(2)
The idea is that there is some average number of stars per unit mass in a galaxy and some average number of observers per star. The choice of the halo mass scale is based on the empirical fact that most stars are observed to be in large halos.

The prior distribution $`𝒫_{}(m_\nu )`$ depends on the extension of the particle physics model which allows neutrino masses to vary and perhaps on stochastic processes during inflation which randomize these variable masses. Some candidate prior distributions will be discussed in Section III.

The fraction of collapsed matter $`F_M(m_\nu )`$ can be approximated using the standard Press-Schechter formalism PressSchechter . We assume a Gaussian density fluctuation field $`\delta (𝐱,t)`$ with a variance $`\sigma (M,t)`$ on the galactic scale $`(M=10^{12}M_{})`$,

$$P(\delta ,t)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\delta ^2}{2\sigma (t)^2}\right].$$
(3)
A collapsed halo is assumed to form when the linearized density contrast $`\delta `$ exceeds a critical value $`\delta _c`$ determined by the spherical collapse model. As detailed in Appendix A, this corresponds to $`\delta _c1.69`$ around the present epoch and $`\delta _c1.63`$ in the infinite future Weinberg87 . Using the Press-Schechter approximation, we obtain

$$F_M(t)P[\delta >\delta _c]=_{\delta _c}^{\mathrm{}}P(\delta ,t)𝑑\delta =\mathrm{erfc}\left[\frac{\delta _c}{\sqrt{2}\sigma _M(t)}\right].$$
(4)
The collapsed fraction $`F_M`$ thus grows over time as the rms density fluctuations $`\sigma `$ increase.

Let us now quantify the effect of neutrino masses on this process. For the small scale $`M`$ that we are considering, assuming a flat Universe, this fluctuation growth is well approximated by

$$\sigma _M(x)\left[1+\frac{3}{2}A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(f_\nu )G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)\right]^{p(f_\nu )}\sigma _M(0),$$
(5)
as shown in Appendix A. The functions $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`p`$ are defined below. Here we have replaced $`t`$ by a new time variable

$$x\frac{\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\rho _\mathrm{m}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{(1+z)^3\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}=\frac{1\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}(1+z)^3,$$
(6)
i.e., the dark-energy-to matter density ratio — we will consider several values of $`x`$ below, corresponding to the infinite future ($`x=\mathrm{}`$), the present epoch ($`x=7/3`$, our default value) and redshift unity ($`x=7/24`$). The function

$$G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)x^{1/3}\left[1+\left(\frac{x}{G_{\mathrm{}}^3}\right)^\alpha \right]^{1/3\alpha },$$
(7)
where $`\alpha =0.795`$ and

$$G_{\mathrm{}}\frac{5\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{2}{3}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{5}{6}\right)}{3\sqrt{\pi }}1.43728,$$
(8)
describes how in the absence of massive neutrinos, fluctuations grow as the cosmic scale factor $`a`$ as long as dark energy is negligible ($`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)x^{1/3}a(1+z)^1`$ for $`x1`$) and then asymptote to a constant value as $`t\mathrm{}`$ and dark energy dominates ($`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)G_{\mathrm{}}`$ as $`x\mathrm{}`$).

We are considering the case where $`m_\nu `$ varies from place to place whereas the physics that determined the amount of baryons and cold dark matter per photon is the same everywhere, so the neutrino fraction $`f_\nu `$ is given by

$$f_\nu \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu }{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}=\frac{\rho _\nu }{\rho _{\mathrm{bc}}+\rho _\nu }=\left[1+\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{bc}}}{\rho _\nu }\right]^1=\left[1+\frac{m_{\mathrm{bc}}}{m_\nu /3}\right]^1,$$
(9)
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{bc}}`$ denotes the non-neutrino density, i.e., that of baryons and cold dark matter, and $`m_{\mathrm{bc}}(4.75\pm 0.30)`$eV gives the measured amount of such matter per neutrino. In other words, increasing the neutrino mass from zero will increase the total matter density per photon by a factor $`\rho _\mathrm{m}/\rho _{\mathrm{bc}}=(1f_\nu )^1`$.

$$A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(f_\nu )x_{\mathrm{eq}}^{1/3}=\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right)^{1/3}(1+z_{\mathrm{eq}})$$
(10)
is the factor by which the Universe has expanded between matter-radiation equality at $`x=x_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ (when fluctuations effectively start to grow) and dark energy domination at $`x=1`$ (when fluctuations gradually stop growing). Since massive neutrinos boost the matter density by a factor $`(1f_\nu )^1`$, they delay vacuum domination until the scale factor is larger by a factor $`(1+f_\nu )^{1/3}`$ and also, in the approximation that neutrinos are nonrelativistic at the matter-radiation equality epoch (valid for $`m_\nu \mathrm{}>1`$ eV), cause matter-radiation equality to occur occurs earlier, when the scale factor is smaller by a factor $`(1+f_\nu )`$. We thus have

$$A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(f_\nu )=(1f_\nu )^{4/3}A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0).$$
(11)
Finally, neutrinos with nonzero mass suppress the galaxy density through the exponent $`p(f_\nu )`$ in equation (5), which is given by Bond80

$$p(f_\nu )=\frac{\sqrt{2524f_\nu }1}{4}(1f_\nu )^{3/5},$$
(12)
and drops from unity for $`f_\nu =0`$ to smaller values as $`f_\nu `$ increases.

In summary, equation (5) shows that the galaxy fluctuation evolution $`\sigma _M(x)`$ depends on the three cosmological parameters $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)`$, $`\sigma _M(0)`$ and $`f_\nu `$. To study the galaxy density as a function of neutrino fraction $`f_\nu `$ using equation (4), we thus need to measure $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)`$ and $`\sigma _M(0)`$ from observational data without making any assumptions about $`f_\nu `$. We cannot do this using the values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ and $`z_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ reported by, say, the WMAP team Spergel03 , since these assume that $`f_\nu =0`$ in our part of the Universe; if $`f_\nu >0`$ here, then matter-radiation equality occurred earlier. We therefore repeat the Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis reported in column 5 of Table 3 in sdsspars , measuring $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)`$ and $`\sigma _M(0)`$ from the WMAP microwave background power spectrum Hinshaw03  combined with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxy power spectrum sdsspower . These measurements are independent of $`f_\nu `$ since this is a free parameter in the analysis and therefore effectively marginalized over. This gives $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)=3057\pm 502`$, $`\sigma _M(0)0.000579\pm 0.000064`$111 As our galactic scale, we take $`M=10^{12}M_{}`$, specifically a top-hat smoothing scale of $`R=1.3h^1`$Mpc. This corresponds to length scales about 100 times smaller than the matter-radiation equality scale where the matter power spectrum turns over. . The above-mentioned $`m_{\mathrm{bc}}`$-value was measured using this same MCMC analysis. We will use the central values for our main analysis and quantify the effect of the uncertainties in the discussion section. Equation (5) thus shows that for $`f_\nu =0`$, fluctuations grow by a factor $`1+1.5A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)4700`$ by the present epoch, which we take to be $`x=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }/\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}0.7/0.32.3`$, giving $`\sigma _M2.7`$. In the infinite future $`x\mathrm{}`$, fluctuations will have grown by a factor $`6600`$, giving $`\sigma _M3.8`$. The basic reason that neutrinos have such a dramatic effect is that these growth factors are so large, implying that even a modest change in the exponent $`p(f_\nu )`$ makes a large difference. Taylor expanding equation (5) in $`f_\nu `$ gives

$$\sigma _M(x,f_\nu )\sigma _M(x,0)e^{\gamma (x)f_\nu }$$
(13)
for $`f_\nu 1`$, where $`\gamma (x)0.6\mathrm{ln}[1+1.5A_\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)]4/33.7`$ for the present epoch and $`\gamma 3.9`$ for the infinite future. Although equation (13) is quite a crude approximation, underestimating the suppression, it shows that small changes in $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ or $`x`$ are unimportant since they affect this exponential fluctuation suppression only logarithmically.

The effect of neutrino free streaming on the galactic density is illustrated in Fig. 1 (top), which shows that the suppression is non-negligible already for $`m_\nu 1`$ eV. We use equation (5) in our calculations for the plots — the approximation equation (13) was merely to provide qualitative intuition for the effect.

The probability distribution $`𝒫(m_\nu )`$ is shown in Fig. 1 (bottom) for power law priors

$$𝒫_{}(m_\nu )m_\nu ^n,$$
(14)
with $`n`$ ranging from 0 to 4. For $`n1`$, these distributions are peaked at $`m_\nu 2`$ eV, while in the case of a flat prior, $`𝒫_{}(m_\nu )=\mathrm{const}`$, the expected values are $`m_\nu 1`$ eV. This is also seen in Fig. 2, where the distribution for a flat prior is shown using a logarithmic scale for $`m_\nu `$.

In this discussion, we have assumed that $`f_\nu 1`$, that is, $`m_\nu 10`$ eV. Very heavy neutrinos (with $`m_\nu 1`$ MeV) would annihilate well before nucleosynthesis and cause no problems with structure formation. If all neutrinos were heavy, neutrons would be stable, leading to an equal number of protons and neutrons. As a result, most of the matter would end up in helium instead of hydrogen. This lack of hydrogen would clearly suppress $`n_{obs}(m_\nu )`$ for observers like us who rely on long-lived (hydrogen burning) stars and water-based chemistry. Moreover, heavy neutrinos would not be able to blow off the envelope in supernova explosions. This means that heavy elements formed in stellar interiors would not be dispersed to form planets and observers. The possibility of the electron neutrino being light and one or two others very heavy is allowed anthropically, but it is already ruled out by the neutrino oscillation experiments, which constrain the mass differences to be within $`0.05`$ eV.

For $`m_\nu 100`$ eV (but $`1`$ MeV), keeping all other physical parameters fixed, neutrinos would have sufficiently low thermal velocities to act approximately as cold dark matter, thereby allowing galaxy-size halos to form. However, the baryon fraction in these halos would be strongly diluted, and it is therefore far from clear whether they would be able to cool and form self-gravitating baryonic disks, let alone stars or observers, with an efficiency comparable to that in our observable universe. In other words, the calculation of anthropic constraints on very large neutrino masses becomes essentially equivalent to the calculation of an anthropic upper bound on the dark matter abundance. We will not attempt to address this issue here, but simply assume that the number of observers $`n_{obs}(m_\nu )`$ is strongly suppressed for $`m_\nu 10`$ eV.

We have also assumed that there are $`N_\nu =3`$ stable neutrinos. Generalizing our result to $`N_\nu >3`$ is straightforward: as long as the masses are low enough for neutrino infall to be negligible, the galaxy number density depends only on the total neutrino mass density, which for standard neutrino freezeout is proportional to the sum of the neutrino masses. If the neutrinos are unstable on cosmological timescales, they suppress fluctuation growth only before decaying, with their decay radiation redshifting away to gravitationally negligible levels within a few expansion times.

## III Prior distribution

Following DV , we shall now discuss possible modifications of the standard particle physics model that could make neutrino masses variable. For early work on how masses of elementary particles can vary randomly in the context of stochastic gauge theories, see Nielsen1 ; Nielsen2 ; Nielsen3 .

Dirac-type neutrino masses can be generated if the Standard Model neutrinos $`\nu ^\alpha `$ mix through the Higgs doublet VEV $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ to some gauge-singlet fermions $`\nu _c^\beta `$,

$$g_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\nu }^\alpha \nu _c^\beta .$$
(15)
The couplings $`g_{\alpha \beta }`$ will generally be variable in string theory inspired models involving antisymmetric form fields $`F_a`$ interacting with branes. (Here, the index $`a`$ labels different form fields.) $`F_a`$ changes its value by $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_a=q_a`$ across a brane, where $`q_a`$ is the brane charge. In the low-energy effective theory, the Yukawa couplings $`g_{\alpha \beta }`$ become functions of the form fields,

$$g_{\alpha \beta }=g_{\alpha \beta }^{(0)}+g_{\alpha \beta }^a\frac{F_a}{M_p^2}+\mathrm{},$$
(16)
where the summation is over all form fields, the coefficients $`g_{\alpha \beta }^{(0)}`$, $`g_{\alpha \beta }^a`$ are assumed to be numbers $`1`$, and $`M_p`$ is the effective cutoff scale, which we assume to be the Planck mass.

In such models, closed brane bubbles nucleate and expand during inflation Brown , creating exponentially large regions with different values of the neutrino masses. When $`F_a`$ changes in increments of $`q_a`$, $`m_\nu `$ changes in increments of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_\nu \mathrm{\Phi }q_a/M_p^2.$$
(17)
To be able to account for neutrino masses $`1`$ eV, we have to require that $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\nu 1`$ eV, that is,

$$q_a10^{11}M_p^2,$$
(18)
for at least some of the brane charges. Such small values of the charges can be achieved using the mechanisms discussed in Bousso ; DV01 ; Banks ; Feng .

It should be noted that the Higgs potential and the Higgs expectation value $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ will also generally depend on $`F_a`$. Moreover, each field $`F_a`$ contributes a term $`F_a^2/2`$ to the vacuum energy density $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and regions with different values of $`F_a`$ will generally have different values of $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. However, in the presence of several form fields with sufficiently small charges, variations of all these parameters are not necessarily correlated, and here we shall assume that there is enough form fields to allow independent variation of the relevant parameters. We can then consider a sub-ensemble of regions with $`m_\nu `$ variable and all other parameters fixed. The probability distribution for $`m_\nu `$ that we calculated in Section II corresponds to such a sub-ensemble.

Let us now turn to the prior distribution $`𝒫_{}(m_\nu )`$. The natural range of variation of $`F_a`$ in Eq. (16) is the Planck scale, and the corresponding range of the neutrino masses is $`0m_\nu ^{(i)}\mathrm{\Phi }`$. (Here, the index $`i`$ labels the three neutrino mass matrix eigenvalues.) Only a small fraction of this range corresponds to values of anthropic interest, $`m_\nu 10`$ eV. In this narrow anthropic range, we expect that the probability distribution for $`F_a`$ after inflation is nearly flat GV01 ,222 A very different model for the prior distribution was considered by Rubakov and Shaposhnikov RS89 . They assumed that $`𝒫_{prior}(X)`$ is a sharply peaked function with a peak outside the anthropic range $`𝒜`$ and argued that the observed value of $`X`$ should then be very close to the boundary of $`𝒜`$. We note that this is unlikely to be the case for the neutrino mass, since it is observed to be comfortably inside the anthropically allowed range. If the model of RS89  applied, the peak of the full distribution would most likely be in a life-hostile environment, where both $`𝒫_{prior}(X)`$ and $`n_{obs}(X)`$ are very small. In the case of the neutrino mass, this would mean that the number density of galaxies is very low. This is not the case in our observable region, indicating that the model of RS89  does not apply.

$$d𝒫_{}=\mathrm{const}dF_1dF_2\mathrm{},$$
(19)
and that the the functions $`g_{\alpha \beta }(F_a)`$ are well approximated by linear functions. If all three neutrino masses vary independently, this implies that

$$d𝒫_{}=\mathrm{const}dm_\nu ^{(e)}dm_\nu ^{(\mu )}dm_\nu ^{(\tau )}.$$
(20)
The probability for the combined mass $`m_\nu =m_\nu ^{(i)}`$ to be between $`m_\nu `$ and $`m_\nu +dm_\nu `$ is then proportional to the volume of the triangular slab of thickness $`dm_\nu `$ in the 3-dimensional mass space,

$$d𝒫_{}m_\nu ^2dm_\nu .$$
(21)
Alternatively, the neutrino masses can be related to one another, for example, by a spontaneously broken family symmetry. If all three masses are proportional to a single variable mass parameter, then we expect

$$d𝒫_{}dm_\nu .$$
(22)
Let us now assess how well the predictions derived from the prior distributions (21) and (22) agree with observations. We first consider the distribution (21), corresponding to independently varying neutrino masses. The most probable value of $`m_\nu `$ for $`n=2`$ is $`m_\nu 3`$ eV, and we expect both the neutrino masses and mass differences to be $`1`$ eV. This expectation, however, is in conflict both with neutrino oscillation experiments suggesting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\nu 0.05`$ eV Fukuda99 ; Kearns02 ; Bahcall03 ; King03  and with astrophysical bounds Spergel03 ; sdsspars  which indicate a combined mass $`m_\nu 1`$ eV.

For a flat prior distribution (22), the most probable value is $`m_\nu 1`$ eV. If $`m_\nu `$ is close to this value, then the three neutrino masses must be nearly degenerate, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_\nu m_\nu `$. This could be interpreted as a sign of a family symmetry. A 90% confidence level prediction for $`m_\nu `$ based on this distribution can be obtained as outlined in Section II. This gives

$$0.1\mathrm{eV}<m_\nu <5\mathrm{eV}.$$
(23)
The lower bound in (23) is somewhat stronger than the bound from the neutrino oscillation data Fukuda99 ; Kearns02 ; Bahcall03 ; King03  ($`m_\nu \mathrm{}>0.05\mathrm{eV}`$), while the upper bound is somewhat weaker than the current astrophysical bounds (e.g., Spergel03 ; Hannestad0303076 ; ElgaroyLahav0303089 ; BashinskySeljak03 ; Hannestad0310133 ; sdsspars ). Note that the strength of current astrophysical bounds is limited not by statistical errors but by systematic uncertainties in non-CMB data. For instance, the recently claimed evidence for $`m_\nu >0`$ Allen0306386  may result from underestimated galaxy cluster modeling uncertainties.

We finally mention the possibility that the right-handed neutrinos $`\nu _c^\alpha `$ have a large Majorana mass $`M_R\mathrm{\Phi }`$. In this case, small neutrino masses can be generated through the see-saw mechanism,

$$m_\nu g^2\mathrm{\Phi }^2/M_R.$$
(24)
If $`M_R`$ is variable, say, within a range $`M_RM_p`$, then its most probable values are likely to be $`M_p`$, and the prior distribution will be peaked at very small values of $`m_\nu 10^6`$ eV.

This discussion suggests that the most promising scenario with variable neutrino masses is the one with Dirac-type masses determined by a single variable mass parameter. It yields a flat prior distribution for $`m_\nu `$, Eq. (22), and the prediction (23) at 90% confidence level.

After we submitted the original version of this paper, Jaume Garriga pointed out to us that see-saw-type models can yield cosmologically interesting prior distributions for $`m_\nu `$ if the Majorana mass is restricted to the range $`M_R<M_R^{(max)}M_p`$. Assuming first that $`M_R`$ is a fixed constant, while $`g`$ is variable, Eq. (24) yields the distribution

$$d𝒫_{prior}dgm^{1/2}dm.$$
(25)
This would give a somewhat smaller predicted neutrino mass than the distribution (22) that we used in most of our calculations.

The distribution (25) applies up to $`m_{max}\mathrm{\Phi }^2/M_R`$. In order to have $`m_{max}0.1`$ eV, we need $`M_R10^{13}`$ GeV.

If both $`M_R`$ and $`g`$ are variable, then, assuming a flat prior for $`M_R`$, Eq. (25) still applies, but now $`m_{max}\mathrm{\Phi }^2/M_R^{(max)}`$, so we need $`M_R^{(max)}10^{13}`$ GeV. An attractive feature of this scenario is that the increment of $`m_\nu `$ in Eq.(17) gets suppressed by an additional factor $`\mathrm{\Phi }/M_R`$, and Eq.(18) gets replaced by a much weaker constraint $`q_a/M_p^2(M_R/10^{13}\mathrm{GeV})^1`$.

## IV Discussion

In conclusion, we have found that the small values of the neutrino masses may be due to anthropic selection. If so, then the most promising model appears to be the one with a flat prior distribution, $`𝒫_{}(m_\nu )=\mathrm{const}`$. The range of $`m_\nu `$ predicted in this model, Eq. (23), has interesting implications for both particle physics and cosmology. On the particle physics side, neutrino masses in this range are nearly degenerate, suggesting extensions of the Standard Model involving a spontaneously broken family symmetry. On the cosmological side, a combined neutrino mass of $`1`$ eV has a non-negligible effect on galaxy formation. This means that it must be taken into account in precision tests of inflation that measure the shape of the primordial power spectrum by combining microwave background and large-scale structure data.

Let us close by discussing the importance of the assumptions we have made and outlining some open problems for future work. The purpose of this brief paper and the prediction of equation (23) is merely to demonstrate that anthropic selection effects may be able to explain the neutrino masses, and much work needs to be done to place this hypothesis on a firmer footing.

### IV.1 Robustness to approximations and measurement errors

To quantify the robustness of our results, Figure 3 shows how the probability distribution for $`m_\nu `$ changes when various assumptions are altered.

First of all, the parameters $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\sigma _M(0)`$ that we used have non-negligible measurement uncertainties. We see that lowering $`\sigma _M(0)`$ by 25% (by about twice its measurement uncertainty) lowers the $`m_\nu `$-prediction slightly. Changing $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ by within its observational uncertainty has an even weaker effect since, as we saw, it enters only logarithmically. Altering the galactic scale $`M`$ affects $`\sigma _M`$ and hence the results only weakly, because of the flatness of the dimensionless power spectrum $`k^3P(k)`$ on galactic scales.

Second, our calculations involved various approximations. We used the Press-Schechter approximation with density threshold $`\delta _c1.69`$ as per Appendix A; lowering this to account for post-virialization infall as discussed in Martel98  is seen to raise the $`m_\nu `$-prediction slightly. Our fluctuation growth treatment of equation (5) is highly accurate in the limit of small mass scales $`M`$ and low baryon fraction $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_m1`$, agreeing with a CMBfast cmbfast  numerical calculation to within a few percent. Figure 3 shows that for the observed baryon fraction $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.15`$, switching to an exact treatment of baryon effects makes virtually no difference. The cosmic expansion eventually slows neutrinos enough for them to start clustering on galaxy scales, and if this happens before dark energy domination, then it reduces $`\gamma `$ equation (13). Since a small fraction of the neutrinos will be in the low tail of their velocity distribution, there is a slight infall correction even for the low $`m_\nu `$-range we have considered, and Figure 3 shows that this increases our $`m_\nu `$-prediction slightly. Finally, we have used the cutoff value of $`x7/3`$, which amounts to using the reference class of observers in galaxies that have formed by now. Figure 3 shows that if we ask instead what would be observed from a random galaxy among all galaxies that ever form (setting $`x=\mathrm{}`$), then the $`m_\nu `$-prediction increases slightly. Conversely, it also shows that considering only observers in galaxies that formed by redshift unity decreases the $`m_\nu `$-prediction. In conclusion, Figure 3 shows that although many of these assumptions make marginal differences, none of them affect the qualitative conclusions, since they all shift the predicted probability distribution by much less than one standard deviation.

### IV.2 Effects of other parameters

The standard models of cosmology and particle physics involve of order 10 and 28 free parameters, respectively. In order to apply anthropic constraints to them, it is crucial to know both which of them can vary, and what the interdependencies or correlations between them are. It is likely that at least some of the cosmological parameters (the baryon-to-photon ratio, say, via baryogenesis) are determined by particle physics parameters in a way that we have yet to understand, and many particle physics parameters may in turn be determined by a smaller number of parameters or vacuum expectation values of some deeper underlying theory. A proper analysis of anthropic predictions should therefore be done in the multi-dimensional space spanned by all fundamental variable parameters.

Such correlations between parameters must ultimately be taken into account not only for computing the theoretical prior $`𝒫_{}`$ of equation (1), but also when computing the factor $`n_{obs}`$ in this equation, which incorporates the observational selection effect. The reason is that strong degeneracies are present which can in many cases offset a detrimental change in one parameter by changes in others. For instance, suppressed galaxy formation caused by increased $`m_\nu `$ can to some extent be compensated by decreasing $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, by increasing the dark-matter-to-photon ratio or by increasing the CMB fluctuation amplitude $`Q`$ above the value $`10^5`$ that we observe Q ; Aguirre  — if any of these three parameters can vary, that is. In the present paper, we have merely considered the simple case where all relevant parameters except $`m_\nu `$ (i.e., the comoving densities of baryons and dark matter, the physical density of dark energy, and the fluctuation amplitude $`Q`$) are kept fixed at their observed values, with no account for scatter due to variation across an ensemble or from measurement uncertainties. A more detailed study of this issue is given in anthrolambdanu  and shows that our present results for $`f_\nu `$ are rather robust to assumptions about $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

This is closely related to the issue of how much information one wishes to include in the factor $`n_{obs}`$ in equation (1) Bostrom ; Aguirre . One extreme is including only the existence of observers, the other extreme is including all available knowledge (even, say, experimental constraints on $`m_\nu `$). As one includes more such information, the anthropic factor becomes progressively less important, and the calculation acquires the flavor of a prediction rather than an explanation. In the context of a multiparameter analysis, the question is whether to use the measured values of other parameters (in our case non-neutrino parameters) or marginalize over them. Our fixing non-neutrino parameters at their observed values is therefore equivalent to factoring in the information from the measurements of these parameters.

Arguably the most interesting outstanding question is whether the fundamental equations that govern our Universe do or do not allow physical quantities such as the neutrino masses to vary from place to place. Calculations of anthropic selection effects may prove useful for shedding light on this. In any case, for quantities that do vary, the inclusion of anthropic selection effects such as the one we have evaluated in this paper is clearly not optional when calculating what the theory predicts that we should observe.

We thank Anthony Aguirre, Gia Dvali, Jaume Garriga, Martin Rees and Douglas Scott for helpful comments. MT was supported by NSF grants AST-0071213 & AST-0134999, NASA grant NAG5-11099, by a David and Lucile Packard Foundation fellowship and a Cottrell Scholarship from Research Corporation. AV was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

## Appendix A Growth of linear perturbations

In this Appendix, we derive and test the approximation given by equation (5) for how small-scale matter fluctuations grow in the presence of radiation, cold dark matter and neutrinos. There are two reasons why this simple approximation complements an exact “black box” calculation with CMBfast cmbfast  or a nearly exact approximation with the Eisenstein & Hu fitting software EisensteinHu99 . First, for a qualitative argument like the one we make in this paper, it is desirable to have a simple intuitive understanding of the underlying physics that includes only those complications that really matter for the argument. Second, neither CMBfast nor the Eisenstein & Hu package were designed to be valid for extreme cosmological parameters such as those corresponding to the infinite future, and indeed break down in this limit.

### A.1 The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM case

For a flat Universe with only pressureless matter (dark and baryonic) and a cosmological constant, the growth of density fluctuations is given by $`\delta G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)`$, where Heath77 ; Martel98

$$G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)=\frac{5}{6}\sqrt{1+\frac{1}{x}}_0^x\frac{dy}{y^{1/6}(1+y)^{3/2}}.$$
(26)
We find that our $`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)`$ fit defined by equation (7) is accurate to better than 1.5% for all $`x`$ and becomes exact both in the limits $`x0`$ (when $`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }x^{1/3}`$) and $`x\mathrm{}`$ (when $`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }G_{\mathrm{}}`$). Figure 4 shows that this approximation greatly improves on the standard Carroll, Press & Turner Carroll92  and power law fits for our present purposes, since these were designed to be accurate only in the past and present and have the wrong limiting behavior in the future as $`x\mathrm{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. For flat models, we have $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=1/(1+x)`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=x/(1+x)`$ and $`x=(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^11)^1`$, so in terms of the standard linear growth factor $`DG_\mathrm{\Lambda }/x^{1/3}`$, the three approximations shown in Figure 4 are

$$D\left[1+\left(\frac{1\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}G_{\mathrm{}}^3}\right)^\gamma \right]^{1/3\gamma },$$
(27)
$`D`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^{4/7}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }+\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}{2}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{70}}\right)\right]^1`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{350\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}}{140\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^{4/7}+(209\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m})\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}+2}}`$
and

$$D\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^{0.21},$$
(29)
respectively.

### A.2 Including radiation

Early on, dark energy was negligible but radiation was gravitationally important, causing density fluctuations to grow as $`\delta G_\gamma (x)`$, where PeeblesOpus

$$G_\gamma (x)=1+\frac{3}{2}\left(\frac{x}{x_{\mathrm{eq}}}\right)^{1/3}.$$
(30)
Since both $`G_\gamma (x)`$ and $`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)`$ accurately describe the growth during the matter-dominated epoch $`x_{\mathrm{eq}}x1`$, with $`G_\gamma G_\mathrm{\Lambda }x^{1/3}`$ during this period, we can combine them to obtain the approximation

$$G(x)1+\frac{3}{2}A_\mathrm{\Lambda }G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(x),$$
(31)
which is accurate for all $`x`$. Here the constant $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is defined by equation (10). In essence, fluctuations grow as $`\delta ax^{1/3}`$ between matter domination ($`x=x_{\mathrm{eq}}`$) and dark energy domination ($`x=1`$), giving a net growth of $`A_\mathrm{\Lambda }=x_{\mathrm{eq}}^{1/3}`$. Equation (31) shows that they grow by an extra factor of 1.5 by starting slightly before matter domination and by an extra factor $`G_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{})1.44`$ by continuing to grow slightly after dark energy domination.

### A.3 Including neutrinos

As shown by Bond80 , the result $`\delta a`$ is generalized to $`\delta a^p`$ when a fraction of the matter is clustering inert and remains spatially uniform. The new exponent $`p<1`$ is given by equation (12) where, in the case that we are focusing on here, the inert fraction is the neutrino fraction $`f_\nu `$.333The result is more general Ma96 ; EisensteinHu99 , and applies also when the inert density components correspond to dark energy or spatial curvature. If we let $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$ denote the density fraction that is not inert (that clusters), then the approximation to equation (12) given by $`p\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^{3/5}`$ is quite accurate, being exact both for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}=0`$ and to first order in $`(1\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m})`$ for all $`1\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}1`$. This is the familiar result that $`d\mathrm{ln}\delta /d\mathrm{ln}a\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}^{0.6}`$.  This motivates our approximation in equation (5), which simply generalizes equation (31) by introducing the neutrino-dependent exponent $`p(f_\nu )`$.

We have tested this approximation by comparing equation (5) with exact results using the CMBfast software cmbfast  and the semianalytic approximation of Eisenstein & Hu EisensteinHu99 , finding excellent agreement (to within a few percent) with both in the small-scale limit for $`x1`$ and negligible baryon fraction. In the distant future limit $`x\mathrm{}`$, both CMBfast and the Eisenstein & Hu software break down, since they were not designed to be accurate for such unusual parameter values ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$, etc.). For the parameter ranges of interest to us, there are small corrections for the effects of both baryons and neutrino infall, which we quantified in Figure 3 in the discussion section.

### A.4 The collapse density threshold $`\delta _c`$

In the top panel of Figure 4, we have numerically computed the collapse density threshold $`\delta _c`$ as a function of cosmic time $`x`$, defined as the linear perturbation theory overdensity that a top hat fluctuation would have had at the time when it collapses. We see that it varies only very weakly with time (note the expanded vertical scale in the figure), dropping from the familiar cold dark matter value $`\delta _c(0)=(3/20)(12\pi )^{2/3}1.68647`$ early on to the limit $`\delta _c(\mathrm{})=(9/5)2^{2/3}G_{\mathrm{}}1.62978`$ Weinberg87  in the infinite future. This calculation neglects the effect of neutrinos. Since their effect is to contribute a gravitationally inert component just as dark energy, we will ignore their effect on $`\delta _c(x)`$, assuming that they merely cause a slight horizontal stretching of the curve (which is seen to be almost constant anyway).