26–29 Sept 2017
DESY Hamburg
Europe/Berlin timezone

Thermalizing sterile neutrino dark matter

27 Sept 2017, 14:17
17m
Seminar room 4b (DESY Hamburg)

Seminar room 4b

DESY Hamburg

Notkestrasse 85, 22607 Hamburg

Speaker

Dr Stefan Vogl (Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik)

Description

Sterile neutrinos produced through resonant or non-resonant oscillations are a well motivated dark matter candidate, but recent constraints from observations have ruled out most of the parameter space. Based on general considerations we find a thermalization mechanism which can increase the yield after resonant and non-resonant production. At the same time, it alleviates the growing tensions with structure formation and X-ray observations and even revives simple non-resonant production as a viable way to produce sterile neutrino dark matter. We investigate the parameters required for the realization of the thermalization mechanism in a representative model and find that a simple estimate based on energy- and entropy conservation describes the mechanism well.

Primary author

Dr Stefan Vogl (Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik)

Presentation materials