A Fresh Look at keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Frozen-In Scalars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how lighter frozen-in scalars can produce keV sterile neutrino dark matter with a cooler spectrum, especially considering new channels after the electroweak phase transition, motivated by potential X-ray signals.

Contribution

It extends previous models by analyzing lighter frozen-in scalars and includes new production channels after the electroweak phase transition.

Findings

Lighter scalars produce a cooler sterile neutrino spectrum.

New production channels involve electroweak boson annihilation and Higgs decay.

Results are relevant for explaining the 3.55 keV X-ray line.

Abstract

Sterile neutrinos with a mass of a few keV can serve as cosmological warm dark matter. We study the production of keV sterile neutrinos in the early universe from the decay of a frozen-in scalar. Previous studies focused on heavy frozen-in scalars with masses above the Higgs mass leading to a hot spectrum for sterile neutrinos with masses below 8-10 keV. Motivated by the recent hints for an X-ray line at 3.55 keV, we extend the analysis to lighter frozen-in scalars, which allow for a cooler spectrum. Below the electroweak phase transition, several qualitatively new channels start contributing. The most important ones are annihilation into electroweak vector bosons, particularly W-bosons as well as Higgs decay into pairs of frozen-in scalars when kinematically allowed.