Freeze-in dark matter within the seesaw mechanism

Physics Letters B, vol. 846, pp. 138206

Abstract

We show that the minimal Type-I Seesaw mechanism can successfully account for the observed dark matter abundance in the form of a keV sterile neutrino. This population can be produced by the decay of the heavier neutral leptons, with masses above the Higgs mass scale, while they are in thermal equilibrium in the early Universe (freeze-in). Moreover, the implementation of the relevant phenomenological constraints (relic abundance, indirect detection and structure formation) on this model automatically selects a region of the parameter space featuring an approximate lepton number symmetry.

Authors 1

1. Michele Lucente corresponding Aachen Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology

   RWTH Aachen University · Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bologna · University of Bologna

   Affiliation as printed

   Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, via Irnerio 46, 40126 Bologna, Italy

   INFN, Sezione di Bologna, viale Berti Pichat 6/2, 40127, Bologna, Italy

   Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology (TTK), RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany