Small-scale structure formation properties of chilled sterile neutrinos as dark matter

TL;DR

This paper calculates key properties of sterile neutrinos produced at the electroweak scale, which influence small-scale structure formation and help constrain dark matter models.

Contribution

It provides new calculations of free-streaming length and phase space density for sterile neutrinos from decay mechanisms, linking production details to structure formation constraints.

Findings

Calculated free-streaming length for sterile neutrinos

Determined phase space density relevant to structure formation

Provides constraints on sterile neutrino dark matter models

Abstract

We calculate the free-streaming length and the phase space density of dark-matter sterile neutrinos produced from decays, at the electroweak scale, of a gauge singlet in the Higgs sector. These quantities, which depend on the dark-matter production mechanism, are relevant to the study of small-scale structure formation and may be used to constrain or rule out dark-matter candidates.