Sterile neutrino Dark Matter production from scalar decay in a thermal bath

Abstract

We calculate the production rate of singlet fermions from the decay of neutral or charged scalar fields in a hot plasma. We find that there are considerable thermal corrections when the temperature of the plasma exceeds the mass of the decaying scalar. We give analytic expressions for the temperature-corrected production rates in the regime where the decay products are relativistic. We also study the regime of non-relativistic decay products numerically. Our results can be used to determine the abundance and momentum distribution of Dark Matter particles produced in scalar decays. The inclusion of thermal corrections helps to improve predictions for the free streaming of the Dark Matter particles, which is crucial to test the compatibility of a given model with cosmic structure formation. With some modifications, our results may be generalised to the production of other Dark Matter candidates in scalar decays.

This version matches the one published in JHEP. 44 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (34)

• The Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly
• Matter and Antimatter in the Universe
• Dark matter and cosmic structure
• Sterile neutrinos, dark matter, and the pulsar velocities in models with a Higgs singlet
• How to find neutral leptons of the nuMSM?
• Dark-matter sterile neutrinos in models with a gauge singlet in the Higgs sector
• Sterile Neutrinos as the Origin of Dark and Baryonic Matter
• Sterile neutrino dark matter as a consequence of nuMSM-induced lepton asymmetry
• Flavour Covariant Transport Equations: an Application to Resonant Leptogenesis
• Discovery of a 3.5 keV line in the Galactic Center and a Critical Look at the Origin of the Line Across Astronomical Targets
• Global Constraints on a Heavy Neutrino
• Unified origin of baryons and dark matter
• Thermal production of relativistic Majorana neutrinos: Strong enhancement by multiple soft scattering
• On the hadronic contribution to sterile neutrino production
• Sensitivity of Next-Generation Tritium Beta-Decay Experiments for keV-Scale Sterile Neutrinos
• Kadanoff-Baym Approach to Flavour Mixing and Oscillations in Resonant Leptogenesis
• Searching for decaying dark matter in deep XMM-Newton observation of the Draco dwarf spheroidal
• Where do the 3.5 keV photons come from? A morphological study of the Galactic Center and of Perseus
• FIMP realization of the scotogenic model
• Deep XMM Observations of Draco rule out at the 99% Confidence Level a Dark Matter Decay Origin for the 3.5 keV Line
• Probing leptogenesis with GeV-scale sterile neutrinos at LHCb and BELLE II
• $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ in low-scale seesaw models versus the lightest neutrino mass
• X-ray Lines from Dark Matter: The Good, The Bad, and The Unlikely
• Right-handed neutrino production rate at T > 160 GeV
• The Inverse Seesaw in Conformal Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking and Phenomenological Consequences
• Possible Capture of keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter on Radioactive beta-decaying Nuclei
• Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter and Low Scale Leptogenesis from a Charged Scalar
• A Fresh Look at keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Frozen-In Scalars
• Sterile neutrinos and right-handed currents in KATRIN
• What can the CMB tell about the microphysics of cosmic reheating?
• Equilibration, particle production, and self-energy
• Neutralino and gravitino dark matter with low reheating temperature
• Cosmological Implications of Light Sterile Neutrinos produced after the QCD Phase Transition
• ${\nu }_R$ dark matter-philic Higgs for 3.5 keV X-ray signal

Cited by in corpus (42)

• The Dawn of FIMP Dark Matter: A Review of Models and Constraints
• Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
• A White Paper on keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
• The Present and Future Status of Heavy Neutral Leptons
• Cold keV dark matter from decays and scatterings
• keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Singlet Scalar Decays: The Most General Case
• Probing Leptogenesis at Future Colliders
• Probing Leptogenesis
• Long-Exposure NuSTAR Constraints on Decaying Dark Matter in the Galactic Halo
• CMB constraints on the inflaton couplings and reheating temperature in $\alpha$-attractor inflation
• Right-handed neutrino dark matter under the B-L gauge interaction
• The Higgs Portal to Cosmology
• Decaying dark matter search with NuSTAR deep sky observations
• Searches for Long-Lived Particles at the Future FCC-ee
• On UltraViolet Freeze-in Dark Matter during Reheating
• Dodelson-Widrow Production of Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter with Non-Trivial Initial Abundance
• Neutrino dark matter and the Higgs portal: improved freeze-in analysis
• Forbidden frozen-in dark matter
• Warm Dark Matter via Ultra-Violet Freeze-In: Reheating Temperature and Non-Thermal Distribution for Fermionic Higgs Portal Dark Matter
• Measuring the Inflaton Coupling in the CMB
• Variations on the Vev Flip-Flop: Instantaneous Freeze-out and Decaying Dark Matter
• A Model for Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos: Leptogenesis and Ultra-High Energy Neutrinos
• Oscillating scalar dissipating in a medium
• Production of heavy sterile neutrinos from vector boson decay at electroweak temperatures
• Cosmological Imprints of Frozen-In Light Sterile Neutrinos
• LiteBIRD and CMB-S4 Sensitivities to Reheating in Plateau Models of Inflation
• Gravitational production of sterile neutrinos
• Galactic Center constraints on self-interacting sterile neutrinos from fermionic dark matter ("ino") models
• The CST Bounce Universe model -- a parametric study
• Roles of sterile neutrinos in particle physics and cosmology
• General Markovian Equation for Scalar Fields in a Slowly Evolving Background
• Sterile neutrino dark matter: relativistic freeze-out
• Frozen-in fermionic singlet dark matter in non-standard cosmology with a decaying fluid
• Sterile neutrino dark matter from right-handed neutrino oscillations
• Dark matter freeze-in via a light fermion mediator: forbidden decay and scattering
• t-channel dark matter at the LHC -- a whitepaper
• New constraints on sterile neutrino dark matter from the Galactic Center
• Inverse Seesaw, dark matter and the Hubble tension
• The Thermal Feedback Effects on the Temperature Evolution during Reheating
• Robustness of ARS Leptogenesis in Scalar Extensions
• Scattering versus Forbidden Decay in Dark Matter Freeze-in
• Decays of heavy scalars in the Grimus-Neufeld model