Sterile neutrino dark matter, CDMS-II and a light Higgs boson

TL;DR

This paper proposes a model where a sterile neutrino, coupled to new scalars and a light Higgs, can serve as dark matter, with potential detection signals aligning with CDMS-II results and implications for Higgs mass.

Contribution

It introduces a novel extension of the Standard Model with a sterile neutrino and scalars, linking dark matter to a light Higgs and experimental detection prospects.

Findings

Sterile neutrino can be a dark matter candidate.

Detection signals depend on a light Higgs boson.

Implications for new physics at ~500 GeV.

Abstract

We add a singlet right handed neutrino plus a charged and a neutral singlet scalars to the standard model. This extension includes a discrete symmetry such that we obtain a heavy sterile neutrino which couples only to the electron and the new scalars. In this sense the singlet neutrino does not mix with ordinary ones and thus has no effect on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. However, such sterile neutrino can be in equilibrium with electroweak particles in the early Universe due to its couplings to electrons and also because the Higgs boson mixes with the singlet scalars. We obtain that the sterile neutrino constitutes a dark matter candidate and analyze its direct detection in the light of current experiments. Our results show that if such a sterile neutrino is realized in nature, and CDMS-II experiment confirms its positive signal, dark matter demands a rather light Higgs boson with new Physics at some 500 GeV scale.