Galactic Center constraints on self-interacting sterile neutrinos from fermionic dark matter ("ino") models

TL;DR

This paper investigates how self-interactions in sterile neutrino dark matter models affect observational constraints, using a self-consistent fermionic profile and analyzing X-ray data to derive tighter bounds on model parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of sterile neutrino dark matter with self-interactions using the RAR fermionic profile and updates constraints with X-ray data from the Milky Way center.

Findings

RAR profile is compatible with galaxy rotation curves and Bullet cluster constraints.

Self-interacting sterile neutrino models yield stronger X-ray constraints.

Dense DM cores in the RAR profile improve bounds on sterile neutrino parameters.

Abstract

The neutrino minimal standard model ($\nu$MSM) has been tightly constrained in the recent years, either from dark matter (DM) production or from X-ray and small-scale observations. However, current bounds on sterile neutrino DM can be significantly modified when considering a $\nu$MSM extension, in which the DM candidates interact via a massive (axial) vector field. In particular, standard production mechanisms in the early Universe can be affected through the decay of such a massive mediator. We perform an indirect detection analysis to study how the $\nu$MSM parameter-space constraints are affected by said interactions. We compute the X-ray fluxes considering a DM profile that self-consistently accounts for the particle physics model by using an updated version of the Ruffini-Arg\"uelles-Rueda (RAR) fermionic ("ino") model, instead of phenomenological profiles such as the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) distribution. We show that the RAR profile accounting for interacting DM, is compatible with measurements of the Galaxy rotation curve and constraints on the DM self-interacting cross section from the Bullet cluster. A new analysis of the X-ray NuSTAR data in the central parsec of the Milky Way, is here performed to derive constraints on the self-interacting sterile neutrino parameter-space. Such constraints are stronger than those obtained with commonly used DM profiles, due to the dense DM core characteristic of the RAR profiles.