2021/10/19 by Manibrata Sen · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cosmic neutrino background #Cosmology #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Neutrino oscillation #Observable #Particle physics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Solar neutrino #Sterile neutrino #Universe #hep-ph
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2156/1/012018
published in Journal of Physics Conference Series 2156(1), 012018 (IOP Publishing) · Proceedings for the "17th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics" (TAUP 2021). Based on Phys.Rev.Lett. 124 (2020) 8, 081802, and Phys.Rev.Lett. 127 (2021) 4, 041101
arxiv created 2021/10/19 · openalex publication_date 2021/12/01 · arxiv updated 2022/03/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
keV scale sterile neutrinos are excellent warm dark matter candidates. In the early Universe, these can be produced from oscillations and scatterings of active neutrinos. However, in the absence of any new physics, this mechanism is in severe tension with observations from X-ray searches. In this work, we show that secret self-interactions of active neutrinos, mediated by a scalar, can efficiently produce these sterile neutrinos without being ruled out by X-ray observations. These neutrino self-interactions are also testable: for a mediator mass greater than a few MeV, these self-interactions can give signatures in laboratory based experiments, while for lighter mediators, there will be observable consequences for upcoming cosmology probes.