Freeze-in Production of Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter in U(1)$_{\rm B-L}$ Model

With the advent of new and more sensitive direct detection experiments, scope for a thermal WIMP explanation of dark matter (DM) has become extremely constricted. The non-observation of thermal WIMP in these experiments has put a strong upper bound on WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section and within a few years it is likely to touch the neutrino floor. Hence in all probability, DM may have some non-thermal origin. In this work we explore in detail this possibility of a non-thermal sterile neutrino DM within the framework of U(1)$_{\rm B-L}$ model. The U(1)$_{\rm B-L}$ model on the other hand is a well-motivated and minimal way of extending the standard model so that it can explain the neutrino masses via Type-I see-saw mechanism. We have shown, besides explaining the neutrino mass, it can also accommodate a non-thermal sterile neutrino DM with correct relic density. In contrast with the existing literature, we have found that $W^\pm$ decay can also be a dominant production mode of the sterile neutrino DM. To obtain the comoving number density of dark matter, we have solved here a coupled set of Boltzmann equations considering all possible decay as well as annihilation production modes of the sterile neutrino dark matter. The framework developed here though has been done for a U(1)$_{\rm B-L}$ model, can be applied quite generally for any models with an extra neutral gauge boson and a fermionic non-thermal dark matter.

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