Return of the Lepton Number: Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Production and the Revival of the Shi-Fuller Mechanism

N3AS-25-012

Return of the Lepton Number: Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Production and the Revival of the Shi-Fuller Mechanism

Cannon M. Vogel, Helena García Escudero, Julien Froustey, Kevork N. Abazajian.
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Abstract

We explore resonant production of sterile neutrino dark matter via the Shi-Fuller (SF) mechanism, revisiting its cosmological viability in light of recent results demonstrating that lepton-number asymmetries L_\alpha \gtrsim 1 at temperatures T > 20\rm\,MeV are consistent with big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Using a quasiclassical Boltzmann transport calculation of the dark matter production, we compute the nonthermal phase space distributions of sterile neutrinos across a broad range of particle mass m_s and mixing angle \sin^2{(2\theta)} parameter space. We then evolve the resulting distributions through linear structure formation using CLASS and fit the resulting matter power spectra to thermal warm dark matter (WDM) transfer functions, enabling a direct mapping between SF models and equivalent thermal WDM particle masses m_{\mathrm{th}}. This allows us to reinterpret existing structure formation limits and Lyman-\alpha forest preferences in the context of SF production. We find that lepton asymmetries L \gtrsim 0.5 at high temperatures open significant viable parameter space in the m_s \gtrsim 10\,\mathrm{keV} and \sin^2 (2\theta) \lesssim 10^{-14} regime, compatible with both x-ray constraints from NuSTAR and INTEGRAL/SPI and recent Lyman-\alpha inferences of m_{\mathrm{th}} \approx 4.1\,\mathrm{keV}. Following lepton number evolution below 20 MeV, we also specifically show that this lepton asymmetry parameter space is compatible with BBN and cosmic microwave background constraints. We present updated constraints, a refined m_{\mathrm{th}} fitting function, and power-law approximations for L across the parameter space. Our results motivate future x-ray observations targeting the \sim\! 20\,\mathrm{keV} photon regime and testing of the m_\mathrm{th} \gtrsim 10\,\mathrm{keV} WDM region.

Associated Fellows