Sterile neutrino dark matter: impact of active-neutrino opacities

Dietrich Bödeker (Fakultät für Physik, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, 33501, Germany) ; Alexander Klaus (Fakultät für Physik, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, 33501, Germany)

The resonant production of keV sterile-neutrino dark matter mainly takes place during the QCD epoch of the early universe. It has been argued that it could be strongly affected by the opacities (or damping rates) of active neutrinos, which receive non-perturbative QCD-contributions. We find that for lepton asymmetries n L α / s $$ {n}_{L_{\alpha }}/s $$ below 10 −6 the opacities significantly affect the sterile-neutrino yield, but that for larger asymmetries, which are necessary for producing a significant fraction of the dark matter, the yield is insensitive to changes of the opacities. Thus non-perturbative QCD contributions to the opacities at temperatures around 160 MeV will not affect this dark matter scenario. We obtain larger sterile-neutrino yields than previous studies, and thus weaker lower limits on the active-sterile mixing angle from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.

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      "source": "Springer", 
      "value": "The resonant production of keV sterile-neutrino dark matter mainly takes place during the QCD epoch of the early universe. It has been argued that it could be strongly affected by the opacities (or damping rates) of active neutrinos, which receive non-perturbative QCD-contributions. We find that for lepton asymmetries   <math> <msub> <mi>n</mi> <msub> <mi>L</mi> <mi>\u03b1</mi> </msub> </msub> <mo>/</mo> <mi>s</mi> </math>  $$ {n}_{L_{\\alpha }}/s $$  below 10 \u22126 the opacities significantly affect the sterile-neutrino yield, but that for larger asymmetries, which are necessary for producing a significant fraction of the dark matter, the yield is insensitive to changes of the opacities. Thus non-perturbative QCD contributions to the opacities at temperatures around 160 MeV will not affect this dark matter scenario. We obtain larger sterile-neutrino yields than previous studies, and thus weaker lower limits on the active-sterile mixing angle from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis."
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Published on:
29 July 2020
Publisher:
Springer
Published in:
Journal of High Energy Physics , Volume 2020 (2020)
Issue 7
Pages 1-17
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2020)218
arXiv:
2005.03039
Copyrights:
The Author(s)
Licence:
CC-BY-3.0

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