Related papers: Sterile neutrinos and structure formation
The very first stars likely formed from metal-free, molecular hydrogen-cooled gas at the centers of dark matter minihalos. Prior to nuclear fusion, these stars may have been supported by dark matter heating from annihilations in the star,…
We introduce a cosmological invisible decay of the sterile neutrino with the eV-scale mass indicated by short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments in order to allow its full thermalization in the early Universe. We show that the fit of…
Neutron stars offer powerful astrophysical laboratories to probe the properties of dark matter. Gradual accumulation of heavy, non-annihilating dark matter in neutron stars can lead to the formation of comparable-mass black holes, and…
Joint analysis of the results of the Neutrino-4 experiment and the data of the GALLEX, SAGE and BEST experiments confirms the parameters of neutrino oscillations declared by the Neutrino-4 experiment $(\Delta m_{14}^2= 7.3 \text{eV}^2$ and…
The primordial gas in the earliest dark matter halos, collapsing at redshifts around z=20, with masses M_halo=10^6 M_sun, and virial temperatures T_vir<10^4K, relied on the presence of molecules for cooling. Several theoretical studies have…
The expansion history and thermal physical process that happened in the early Universe before big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) remains relatively unconstrained by observations. Low reheating temperature universes with normalcy temperatures of…
Dark-matter particles like neutralinos should decouple from the hot cosmic plasma at temperatures of about 40 GeV. Later they can annihilate each other into standard-model particles, which are injected into the dense primordial plasma and…
One of the possible methods to distinguish among various dark matter candidates is to study the effects of dark matter decays. We consider four different dark matter candidates (light dark matter, gravitinos, neutralinos and sterile…
The current models of early star and galaxy formation are based upon the hierarchical growth of dark matter halos, within which the baryons condense into stars after cooling down from a hot diffuse phase. The latter is replenished by infall…
We examine whether the accretion of dark matter onto neutron stars could ever have any visible external effects. Captured dark matter which subsequently annihilates will heat the neutron stars, although it seems the effect will be too small…
We study a scenario where sterile neutrino (either warm or cold) dark matter (DM) is produced through (nonresonant) oscillations among right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) and can constitute the whole DM in the Universe, in contrast to the…
We review the status of sterile neutrino dark matter and discuss astrophysical and cosmological bounds on its properties as well as future prospects for its experimental searches. We argue that if sterile neutrinos are the dominant fraction…
Sterile neutrinos in the keV mass range may constitute the galactic dark matter. Various proposed direct detection and laboratory searches are reviewed. The most promising method in the near future is complete energy-momentum reconstruction…
We study the formation and properties of dark neutron stars in a scenario where dark matter is made up of (heavy) dark baryons in a sequestered copy of the MSSM. This scenario naturally explains the coincidence of baryonic and dark matter…
We consider a (long-lived) sterile neutrino dark matter scenario in a five dimensional (5D) warped extra dimension model where the fields can live in the bulk, which is partly motivated from the absence of the absolutely stable particles in…
The annihilation of new dark matter candidates with masses $m_X$ in the MeV range may account for the galactic positrons that are required to explain the 511 keV $\gamma$-ray flux from the galactic bulge. We study the impact of MeV-mass…
Dark matter particles may be captured by a star and then thermalized in the star's core. At the end of its life a massive star collapses suddenly and a compact object is formed. The dark matter particles redistribute accordingly. In the…
One of the most outstanding problems in the gravitational collapse scenario of early structure formation is the cooling of primordial gas to allow for small mass objects to form. As the neutral primordial gas is a poor radiator at…
We propose a new mechanism by which dark matter (DM) can affect the early universe. The hot interior of a macroscopic DM, or macro, can behave as a heat reservoir so that energetic photons are emitted from its surface. This results in…
Sterile right-handed neutrinos can be naturally embedded in a low scale gauged $U(1)_{B-L}$ extension of the standard model. We show that, within a low reheating scenario, such a neutrino is an interesting candidate for dark matter. We…