Sterile neutrinos: the dark side of the light fermions

TL;DR

This paper discusses sterile neutrinos, which are gauge singlet fermions that could explain dark matter, pulsar velocities, and influence early star formation, highlighting their significance in astrophysics and cosmology.

Contribution

It reviews the role of light sterile neutrinos in cosmology and astrophysics, emphasizing their potential as dark matter candidates and their observable effects.

Findings

Sterile neutrinos with keV masses can serve as dark matter.

Decays of sterile neutrinos produce X-ray fluxes detectable by telescopes.

Sterile neutrinos influence pulsar velocities and star formation processes.

Abstract

The discovery of neutrino masses suggests the likely existence of gauge singlet fermions that participate in the neutrino mass generation via the seesaw mechanism. The masses of the corresponding degrees of freedom can range from well below the electroweak scale to the Planck scale. If some of the singlet fermions are light, the sterile neutrinos appear in the low-energy effective theory. They can play an important role in astrophysics and cosmology. In particular, sterile neutrinos with masses of several keV can account for cosmological dark matter, which can be relatively warm or cold, depending on the production mechanism. The same particles can explain the observed velocities of pulsars because of the anisotropy in their emission from a cooling neutron star born in a supernova explosion. Decays of the relic sterile neutrinos can produce a flux of X-rays that can affect the formation of the first stars. Existing and future X-ray telescopes can be used to search for the relic sterile neutrinos.