Unveiling neutrino halos with CMB lensing

The existence of a cosmic neutrino background has been inferred indirectly from cosmological surveys through its effect on the linear-theory evolution of primordial density perturbations, as well as from measurements of the primordial abundances of light elements. Constraints on the masses of the three neutrino species imply that at least two of them move nonrelativistically today. As a consequence, nonlinear evolution of density perturbations results in the formation of neutrino halos around dark matter halos. We study whether these neutrino halos can be detected in the foreseeable future through measurements of weak gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background, thus providing, possibly, the first beyondlinear-theory signature of cosmic neutrinos.