Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter as a Probe of Inflationary Reheating
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866915712544538624 |
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| author | Cline, James M. Xu, Yong |
| author_facet | Cline, James M. Xu, Yong |
| contents | Sterile neutrinos offer a minimal and testable explanation for dark matter (DM), with their radiative decay actively searched for in X-ray observations. We show that cold sterile neutrino DM can be efficiently produced during reheating from inflaton decays with a tiny branching ratio, ${\rm BR}\lesssim 10^{-4}$. This production mechanism opens regions of parameter space where the active-sterile mixing is small enough to evade current X-ray constraints while reproducing the observed DM abundance. We systematically map the viable parameter space in terms of the sterile neutrino mass, mixing angle, inflaton mass, reheating temperature, and branching ratio. We further demonstrate that sterile neutrino DM can serve as a probe of inflationary reheating, with future X-ray observations capable of setting lower bounds on the reheating temperature several orders of magnitude above the existing bound from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_03346 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter as a Probe of Inflationary Reheating Cline, James M. Xu, Yong High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Sterile neutrinos offer a minimal and testable explanation for dark matter (DM), with their radiative decay actively searched for in X-ray observations. We show that cold sterile neutrino DM can be efficiently produced during reheating from inflaton decays with a tiny branching ratio, ${\rm BR}\lesssim 10^{-4}$. This production mechanism opens regions of parameter space where the active-sterile mixing is small enough to evade current X-ray constraints while reproducing the observed DM abundance. We systematically map the viable parameter space in terms of the sterile neutrino mass, mixing angle, inflaton mass, reheating temperature, and branching ratio. We further demonstrate that sterile neutrino DM can serve as a probe of inflationary reheating, with future X-ray observations capable of setting lower bounds on the reheating temperature several orders of magnitude above the existing bound from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. |
| title | Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter as a Probe of Inflationary Reheating |
| topic | High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03346 |