The Seesaw Scale vs Cosmology

We will study the simplest extension of the Standard Model that can account for neutrino masses: the Type-I seesaw. The model introduces a New Physics scale, M, which is often assumed to be much larger than the electroweak scale. However, it is presently unconstrained and the light neutrino masses and mixing can be generated for any value of M above O(eV). Paying special attention to the contribution of the sterile states to Neff as a function of M, we will show that a large part of the M parameter space (8 orders of magnitude) can be excluded thanks to cosmological measurements. The implications for neutrinoless double beta decay will be discussed too.