Kinetic equations for sterile neutrinos from thermal fluctuations

Abstract

We obtain non-linear kinetic equations for sterile neutrino occupancies and lepton minus baryon numbers by matching real time correlation functions of thermal fluctuations computed in an effective description to those computed in thermal quantum field theory. After expanding in the sterile-neutrino Yukawa couplings, the coefficients in the equations are written as real time correlation functions of Standard Model operators. Our kinetic equations are valid for an arbitrary number of sterile neutrinos of any mass spectrum. They can be used to describe, e.g., low-scale leptogenesis via neutrino oscillations, or sterile neutrino dark matter production in the Higgs phase.

30 pages. v2: Typos corrected, results unchanged, published version

References in corpus (6)

• The Sphaleron Rate in the Minimal Standard Model
• Thermal production of relativistic Majorana neutrinos: Strong enhancement by multiple soft scattering
• Kubo relations and radiative corrections for lepton number washout
• Sterile neutrino dark matter via GeV-scale leptogenesis?
• Order g^2 susceptibilities in the symmetric phase of the Standard Model
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• Low-scale Resonant Leptogenesis in $SU(5)$ GUT with ${\mathcal{T}}_{13}$ Family Symmetry
• Reconciling resonant leptogenesis and baryogenesis via neutrino oscillations
• Sterile neutrino rates for general $M$, $T$, $\mu$, $k$: review of a theoretical framework
• On different approaches to freeze-in and freeze-out leptogenesis with quasi-degenerate neutrinos