Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2310.15906

Gravitational production of sterile neutrinos

Fotis Koutroulis·Oleg Lebedev·Stefan Pokorski
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We consider gravitational production of singlet fermions such as sterile neutrinos during and after inflation. The production efficiency due to classical gravity is suppressed by the fermion mass. Quantum gravitational effects, on the other hand, are expected to break conformal invariance of the fermion sector by the Planck scale-suppressed operators irrespective of the mass. We find that such operators are very efficient in fermion production immediately after inflation, generating a significant background of stable or long-lived feebly interacting particles. This applies, in particular, to sterile neutrinos which can constitute cold non-thermal dark matter for a wide range of masses, including the keV scale.

Explore related subjects

hep-phastro-ph.CO

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Fotis Koutroulis, Oleg Lebedev, Stefan Pokorski. 2024-03-19. Gravitational production of sterile neutrinos. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep04(2024)027

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Exploring the Singlino-dominated Thermal Neutralino Dark Matter in the $Z_3$ invariant NMSSM

We examine the parameter space of the Next to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) with Singlino-dominated neutralino $\widetildeχ_1^0$ as the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). Our study focuses on identifying the regions within this parameter space that produce a thermal relic abundance of $\widetildeχ_1^0$ smaller than the observed cold dark matter relic density while remaining consistent with constraints from LEP measurements, low-energy experiments, Higgs measurements, LHC data, and dark matter direct detection experiments. We identify the dominant annihilation modes of the LSP neutralino across varying LSP mass ranges $\sim \mathcal{O}(1)-\mathcal{O}(10^{3})~$GeV. Furthermore, we conduct a benchmark study to assess the production rates of triple-boson final states emerging from direct electroweakino pair production at the LHC. Drawing insights from these findings, we perform a detailed collider analysis to explore the future potential of probing the triple-boson final states involving a light Higgs boson at the high-luminosity LHC (HL-LHC).

hep-ph↗
arXiv2026

Unveiling the Collins-Soper kernel in inclusive DIS at threshold

We revisit the factorization of inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS) near the kinematic threshold in terms of collinear, off-light-cone operators. At threshold, particle production develops around two opposite near-light-cone directions in close analogy with transverse-momentum-dependent semi-inclusive DIS. The Collins-Soper kernel then emerges as the universal function governing the rapidity evolution of the relevant parton correlators in both cases. Our new framework also clarifies outstanding issues related to soft radiation and rapidity divergences at threshold.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2026

Novel Light Dark Matter Detection with Quantum Parity Detector Using Qubit Arrays

We present the design and the sensitivity reach of the Qubit-based Light Dark Matter detection experiment. We propose the novel two-chip design to reduce signal dissipation, with quantum parity measurement to enhance single-phonon detection sensitivity. We demonstrate the performance of the detector with full phonon and quasiparticle simulations. The experiment is projected to detect $\gtrsim 30$ meV energy deposition with nearly $100\%$ efficiency and high energy resolution. The sensitivity to $m_χ\gtrsim 0.01$ MeV dark matter scattering cross section is expected to be advanced by orders of magnitude for both light and heavy mediators, and similar improvements will be achieved for axion and dark photon absorption in the $0.04$-$0.2$ eV mass range.

hep-ph↗