KeV sterile neutrino dark matter in gauge extensions of the standard model

Abstract

It is known that a keV scale sterile neutrino is a good warm dark matter candidate. We study how this possibility could be realized in the context of gauge extensions of the standard model. The na\"ive expectation leads to large thermal overproduction of sterile neutrinos in this setup. However, we find that it is possible to use out-of-equilibrium decay of the other right-handed neutrinos of the model to dilute the present density of the keV sterile neutrinos and achieve the observed dark matter density. We present the universal requirements that should be satisfied by the gauge extensions of the standard model, containing right-handed neutrinos, to be viable models of warm dark matter, and provide a simple example in the context of the left-right symmetric model.