Solving Cosmological Puzzles using Finite Temperature $\nu$SMEFT

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified minimal effective field theory framework extending the Standard Model with heavy neutrinos to simultaneously address dark matter, electroweak phase transition, and leptogenesis, consistent with current experimental constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive EFT approach incorporating dimension-six operators to achieve viable dark matter, a strong electroweak phase transition, and low-scale leptogenesis.

Findings

The Higgs operator enhances the electroweak phase transition.

Resonant leptogenesis is achieved via tiny neutrino mass splittings.

Dark matter candidate interacts through dimension-five and six operators, compatible with experimental bounds.

Abstract

We study a minimal framework that naturally yields viable Dark Matter, a strong first-order electroweak phase transition and low-scale resonant leptogenesis. Augmenting the Standard Model with three heavy Majorana neutrinos, we study the corresponding neutrino-extended Standard Model Effective Field Theory, including operators upto mass-dimension six. The pure Higgs operator provides the dominant enhancement required for a strong first-order electroweak phase transition, while the remaining operators yield subleading effects consistent with electroweak precision constraints. The signal for the stochastic gravitational-wave background is dominated by sound waves in the plasma, with magnetohydrodynamic turbulence providing a subleading contribution. Low-scale resonant leptogenesis is realized through tiny mass splittings among quasi-degenerate heavy neutrinos, dynamically generated in the symmetric phase by the combined effect of one-loop RG-induced corrections and finite-temperature contributions. Solving the Boltzmann equations, we show that the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe can be reproduced while remaining consistent with neutrino oscillation data and charged-lepton-flavor-violation constraints. One of the heavy neutrinos is stabilized by a discrete symmetry thereby acting as a fermionic dark matter candidate. Its interactions with the Standard Model arise from dimension-five and dimension-six effective operators, leading to viable annihilation, elastic scattering, and indirect detection phenomenology compatible with current experimental bounds. The dark matter sector remains decoupled from the dynamics of the electroweak phase transition and leptogenesis, allowing all three phenomena to be consistently realized within a unified effective field theory framework.