Lepton-number-driven sterile neutrino production in the early universe

2008/02/29 by Chad T. Kishimoto, George M. Fuller · 48 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Electron #Lepton #Lepton number #MINOS #Mixing (physics) #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutrino oscillation #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Solar neutrino #Sterile neutrino #Super-Kamiokande #Universe #astro-ph #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.023524

published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 78(2) (American Physical Society) · 15 pages, 7 figures; matches published version

arxiv created 2008/07/18 · openalex publication_date 2008/07/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08

Abstract

We examine medium-enhanced, neutrino scattering-induced decoherent production of dark matter candidate sterile neutrinos in the early universe. In cases with a significant net lepton number we find two resonances, where the effective in-medium mixing angles are large. We calculate the lepton number depletion-driven evolution of these resonances. We describe the dependence of this evolution on lepton numbers, sterile neutrino rest mass, and the active-sterile vacuum mixing angle. We find that this resonance evolution can result in relic sterile neutrino energy spectra with a generic form which is sharply peaked in energy. We compare our complete quantum kinetic equation treatment with the widely-used quantum Zeno ansatz.

Citations

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