Gravitational waves from neutrino mass and dark matter genesis

Pasquale Di Bari,Ye-Ling Zhou,Danny Marfatia

doi:10.1103/physrevd.102.095017

Pasquale Di Bari, Ye-Ling Zhou + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.102.095017

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Abstract

We introduce a model in which the genesis of dark matter (DM) and neutrino masses is associated with a first order phase transition of a scalar singlet field. During the phase transition a source right-handed neutrino (RHN) acquires a spacetime-dependent mass dynamically, a small fraction of which is converted via resonant oscillations into a very weakly mixed dark RHN which decays to a dark matter RHN with the observed relic abundance. Neutrino masses are generated via a traditional two RHN type-I seesaw between a fourth RHN and the source neutrino. The gravitational waves produced during the phase transition have a peak frequency that increases with the DM mass, and are detectable at future gravitational wave interferometers for DM masses above ~ 1 MeV. Since the source RHNs are heavier than the electroweak scale, successful leptogenesis is also attainable.

Highlights

The nature of dark matter (DM) is one of the longeststanding puzzles in fundamental physics [1]
Astrophysical and cosmological observations support a solution in terms of a new particle and disfavor alternative explanations in terms of modified gravity or primordial black holes, all efforts to identify the nature of this new particle, with direct, indirect and collider searches, have failed so far
In this paper we introduce a novel mechanism for the production of right-handed neutrino (RHN) DM that relies on a first-order phase transition of a scalar singlet field

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The nature of dark matter (DM) is one of the longeststanding puzzles in fundamental physics [1]. It is quite reasonable to seek unified models of neutrino masses, DM and leptogenesis starting from the type-I seesaw Lagrangian and extended with some new ingredient that addresses DM An example of this kind was proposed in Ref. [2] in which one (dark) right-handed neutrino (RHN) has vanishing Yukawa couplings and does not contribute to neutrino masses and mixing It mixes with the other (source) RHNs and to the standard model Higgs through the five-dimensional nonrenormalizable operator ðλIJ=ΛÞΦ†ΦNcRINRJ [3]. In our scenario there is an important link with neutrino masses and leptogenesis

THE MODEL

DARK MATTER GENESIS

SPECTRUM OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES

Findings

FINAL REMARKS