Sterile neutrino Dark Matter in the minimal Dirac Seesaw

TL;DR

This paper explores a minimal Dirac seesaw model where sterile neutrinos serve as dark matter candidates, produced via freeze-in, and remains consistent with cosmological and astrophysical constraints due to a specific symmetry structure.

Contribution

It introduces a novel minimal Dirac seesaw framework with a $ ext{Z}_6$ symmetry that naturally produces sterile neutrino dark matter without Majorana mass terms.

Findings

Viable dark matter relic abundance achieved through freeze-in production.

Absence of X-ray constraints due to Dirac nature of neutrinos.

Negligible impact on $ ext{N}_{ m eff}$, consistent with cosmological data.

Abstract

We study sterile neutrino dark matter in a minimal Type-I Dirac seesaw framework where the states responsible for generating Dirac neutrino masses at tree level can be viable dark matter candidates. A $\mathcal{Z}_6$ symmetry, spontaneously broken to a residual $\mathcal{Z}_3$ by the vacuum expectation value of a singlet scalar, forbids Majorana mass operators and ensures neutrino Diracness. The lightest sterile neutrino is produced non-thermally via freeze-in from decays of Standard Model particles and an additional scalar state. We show that the presence of an additional right-handed mixing angle, $\theta_R$, opens up viable regions of parameter space where the observed dark matter relic abundance can be reproduced while maintaining cosmological stability. This mainly stems from the absence of X-ray astrophysical constraints in our scenario. We further find that the freeze-in production of right-handed neutrinos yields a negligible contribution to $\Delta N_{\rm eff}$, consistent with current cosmological bounds.