Freeze-in Dark Matter via Light Dirac Neutrino Portal

TL;DR

This paper explores a non-thermal dark matter production mechanism via a light Dirac neutrino portal, analyzing its implications for cosmological parameters and structure formation constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal model linking dark matter and neutrinos through a Dirac fermion and scalar, analyzing freeze-in production and cosmological constraints.

Findings

DM abundance constrains model parameters consistent with Planck data

Relativistic neutrinos contribute to effective relativistic degrees of freedom

Structure formation constraints limit DM mass up to ~100 keV

Abstract

We propose a scenario where dark matter (DM) can be generated non-thermally due to the presence of a light Dirac neutrino portal between the standard model (SM) and dark sector particles. The SM is minimally extended by three right handed neutrinos ($\nu_R$), a Dirac fermion DM candidate ($\psi$) and a complex scalar ($\phi$), transforming non-trivially under an unbroken $\mathbb{Z}_4$ symmetry while being singlets under the SM gauge group. While DM and $\nu_R$ couplings are considered to be tiny in order to be in the non-thermal or freeze-in regime, $\phi$ can be produced either thermally or non-thermally depending upon the strength of its Higgs portal coupling. We consider both these possibilities and find out the resulting DM abundance via freeze-in mechanism to constrain the model parameters in the light of Planck 2018 data. Since the interactions producing DM also produces relativistic $\nu_R$, we check the enhanced contribution to the effective relativistic degrees of freedom $\Delta {\rm N}_{\rm eff}$ in view of existing bounds as well as future sensitivities. We also check the stringent constraints on free-streaming length of such freeze-in DM from structure formation requirements. Such constraints can rule out DM mass all the way up to $\mathcal{O}(100 \, {\rm keV})$ keeping the $\Delta {\rm N}_{\rm eff} \leq \mathcal{O}(10^{-3})$, out of reach from near future experiments. Possible extensions of this minimal model can lead to observable $\Delta {\rm N}_{\rm eff}$ which can be probed at next generation experiments.