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arXiv · 1409.4330

A Fresh Look at keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Frozen-In Scalars

Adisorn Adulpravitchai·Michael A. Schmidt
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Abstract

Sterile neutrinos with a mass of a few keV can serve as cosmological warm dark matter. We study the production of keV sterile neutrinos in the early universe from the decay of a frozen-in scalar. Previous studies focused on heavy frozen-in scalars with masses above the Higgs mass leading to a hot spectrum for sterile neutrinos with masses below 8-10 keV. Motivated by the recent hints for an X-ray line at 3.55 keV, we extend the analysis to lighter frozen-in scalars, which allow for a cooler spectrum. Below the electroweak phase transition, several qualitatively new channels start contributing. The most important ones are annihilation into electroweak vector bosons, particularly W-bosons as well as Higgs decay into pairs of frozen-in scalars when kinematically allowed.

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Adisorn Adulpravitchai, Michael A. Schmidt. 2014-09-15. A Fresh Look at keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Frozen-In Scalars. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep01(2015)006

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