Abstract
Abstract
Sterile neutrinos are one of the leading dark matter candidates. Their masses may originate from a vacuum expectation value of a scalar field. If the sterile neutrino couplings are very small and their direct coupling to the inflaton is forbidden by the lepton number symmetry, the leading dark matter production mechanism is the freeze-in scenario. We study this possibility in the neutrino mass range up to 1 GeV, taking into account relativistic production rates based on the Bose-Einstein statistics, thermal masses and phase transition effects. The specifics of the production mechanism and the dominant mode depend on the relation between the scalar and sterile neutrino masses as well as on whether or not the scalar is thermalized. We find that the observed dark matter abundance can be produced in all of the cases considered. We also revisit the freeze-in production of a Higgs portal scalar, pointing out the importance of a fusion mode, as well as the thermalization constraints.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Reference104 articles.
1. P. Minkowski, μ → eγ at a rate of one out of 109 muon decays?, Phys. Lett. B 67 (1977) 421 [INSPIRE].
2. M. Gell-Mann, P. Ramond and R. Slansky, Complex spinors and unified theories, Conf. Proc. C 790927 (1979) 315 [arXiv:1306.4669] [INSPIRE].
3. T. Yanagida, Horizontal gauge symmetry and masses of neutrinos, Conf. Proc. C 7902131 (1979) 95 [INSPIRE].
4. R.N. Mohapatra and G. Senjanović, Neutrino mass and spontaneous parity nonconservation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 44 (1980) 912 [INSPIRE].
5. J. Schechter and J.W.F. Valle, Neutrino masses in SU(2) × U(1) theories, Phys. Rev. D 22 (1980) 2227 [INSPIRE].
Cited by
32 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献