Freeze-in dark matter within the seesaw mechanism

We show that the minimal Type-I Seesaw mechanism can successfully account for the observed dark matter abundance in the form of a keV sterile neutrino. This population can be produced by the decay of the heavier neutral leptons, with masses above the electroweak mass scale, while they are in thermal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysics letters. B Vol. 846; p. 138206
Main Author Lucente, Michele
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 10.11.2023
Elsevier
Subjects
Dark matter
Freeze-in
Lepton number symmetry
Neutrinos
Type-I seesaw
Lepton number symmetry
Freeze-in
Dark matter
Neutrinos
Type-I seesaw
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Summary:We show that the minimal Type-I Seesaw mechanism can successfully account for the observed dark matter abundance in the form of a keV sterile neutrino. This population can be produced by the decay of the heavier neutral leptons, with masses above the electroweak mass scale, while they are in thermal equilibrium in the early Universe (freeze-in). Moreover, the implementation of the relevant phenomenological constraints (relic abundance, indirect detection and structure formation) on this model automatically selects a region of the parameter space featuring an approximate lepton number symmetry.
ISSN:0370-2693
1873-2445
DOI:10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138206