Lepton Number-Driven Sterile Neutrino Production in the Early Universe

Abstract

We examine medium-enhanced, neutrino scattering-induced decoherent production of dark matter candidate sterile neutrinos in the early universe. In cases with a significant net lepton number we find two resonances, where the effective in-medium mixing angles are large. We calculate the lepton number depletion-driven evolution of these resonances. We describe the dependence of this evolution on lepton numbers, sterile neutrino rest mass, and the active-sterile vacuum mixing angle. We find that this resonance evolution can result in relic sterile neutrino energy spectra with a generic form which is sharply peaked in energy. We compare our complete quantum kinetic equation treatment with the widely-used quantum Zeno ansatz.

arXiv comment15 pages, 7 figures; matches published version

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• Sterile neutrinos in cosmology
• Neutrino Quantum Kinetics
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• Resonantly-Produced 7 keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Models and the Properties of Milky Way Satellites
• Sterile neutrino dark matter: A tale of weak interactions in the strong coupling epoch
• Astrophysical constraints on resonantly produced sterile neutrino dark matter
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• Diluted equilibrium sterile neutrino dark matter
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• Strange mechanics of the neutrino flavor pendulum
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• Dark Matter Studies Entrain Nuclear Physics
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• Roles of sterile neutrinos in particle physics and cosmology
• Weak Interaction Rate Coulomb Corrections in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Separate seesaw and its applications to dark matter and baryogenesis
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• Instabilities in neutrino systems induced by interactions with scalars
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• Quantum measurement schemes related to flavor-weighted energies
• Opening up New Parameter Space for Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter