Speaker
Description
Sterile neutrinos are attractive dark matter candidates due to their feeble interactions with the Standard Model, cosmological longevity, and natural emergence in extensions of the neutrino sector. Early production mechanisms based on non-resonant active–sterile oscillations, most notably the Dodelson–Widrow (DW) mechanism, are now known to be insufficient to account for the observed dark matter abundance. Recently, modifications of the DW scenario involving physics beyond the Standard Model have shown promising results by altering the effective active–sterile mixing angle during production. Such BSM effects can change the sterile neutrino abundance while remaining consistent with current constraints. In this talk, I will present an overview of these attempts to revive sterile neutrino dark matter through modified DW mechanisms. I will also discuss preliminary results on sterile neutrino dark matter with vector-mediated sterile self-interactions.