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Galactic center constraints on self-interacting sterile neutrinos from fermionic dark matter ("ino") models

R. Yunis, C. R. Argüelles, N. E. Mavromatos, A. Moliné, A. Krut, M. Carinci, J. A. Rueda, R. Ruffini

Abstract
The neutrino minimal standard model (MSM) has been tightly constrained in the recent years, either from dark matter (DM) production or from X-ray and small-scale observations. However, current bounds on sterile neutrino DM can be significantly modified when considering a MSM extension, in which the DM candidates interact via a massive (axial) vector field. In particular, standard production mechanisms in the early Universe can be affected through the decay of such a massive mediator. We perform an indirect detection analysis to study how the MSM parameter-space constraints are affected by said interactions. We compute the X-ray fluxes considering a DM profile that self-consistently accounts for the particle physics model by using an updated version of the Ruffini–Argüelles–Rueda (RAR) fermionic (“ino”) model, instead of phenomenological profiles such as the Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) distribution. We show that the RAR profile accounting for interacting DM, is compatible with measurements of the Galaxy rotation curve and constraints on the DM self-interacting cross section from the Bullet cluster. A new analysis of the X-ray NuSTAR data in the central parsec of the Milky Way, is here performed to derive constraints on the self-interacting sterile neutrino parameter-space. Such constraints are stronger than those obtained with commonly used DM profiles, due to the dense DM core characteristic of the RAR profiles.

Keywords
The neutrino minimal standard model (MSM) has been tightly constrained in the recent years, either from dark matter (DM) production or from X-ray and small-scale observations. However, current bounds on sterile neutrino DM can be significantly modified wh

Physics of the Dark Universe
Volume 30
2020 December

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Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia COMPETE 2020 PORTUGAL 2020 União Europeia