2mass-allsky

Forecasting neutrino mass constraints from the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

September 2026 • 2026PhRvD.114f3502S

Authors • Spezzati, Francesco • Wang, Yun • Hearin, Andrew

Abstract • We present realistic forecasts for the constraining power of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on fundamental cosmological parameters, with particular emphasis on the absolute neutrino mass scale, using full-shape analyses of the galaxy power spectrum. We analyze simulated light cone mock catalogs of Hα emission-line galaxies spanning the redshift range 0.5<z<2 over 2400 deg2, designed to reproduce the expected properties of the Roman High Latitude Wide Area Spectroscopic Survey. We perform parameter inference on the galaxy power spectrum multipoles using two complementary theoretical frameworks: a model-dependent approach based on the effective field theory of large-scale structure (EFT of LSS) within Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM), and a model-independent phenomenological approach that makes no assumptions about the background cosmological model. In the ΛCDM analysis, we find mν<0.380(0.162) eV at 95(68)% CL using big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) prior and a broad prior on ns, which tightens to mν<0.276(0.121) eV when Planck priors on ωb, ωcdm, and ns are added. Our forecasts show that Roman can additionally constrain H0, Ωm, and σ8 with precisions of 1.3%, 4.3%, and 2.9% in line with stage IV galaxy survey measurements and forecasts. In the model-independent analysis, we demonstrate that the phenomenological model can robustly recover unbiased measurements of the angular diameter distance, the Hubble parameter, and the growth of structure across all redshift bins, in the same range of scales as the EFT model, and obtain mν<0.63(0.36) eV at 95(68)% CL when Planck priors are included.

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IPAC Authors
(alphabetical)

Francesco Spezzati

Postdoctoral Scholar


Yun_may2018

Yun Wang

Staff Scientist