Abstract
We review how the sterile neutrino can be a dark-matter candidate. We study three possible production mechanisms for sterile-neutrino dark-matter: the Dodelson-Widrow (DW) mechanism, the Shi-Fuller (SF) mechanism, and production via the decay of the scalar field. Sterile-neutrino dark matter produced only through the DW mechanism can be eliminated based on a combination of X-ray and Lyman-$\alpha$ measurements. The SF mechanism can ameliorate the problem occurring in the case of DW mechanism. The other alternative is the production of sterile neutrinos via the decay of the scalar field. By estimating the average momentum of the sterile neutrino, we investigate whether sterile neutrinos can be warm dark matter or not. We briefly discuss how sterile neutrinos can be probed indirectly by using X-ray telescopes that can detect the photon line signal produced from radiative decay of the sterile neutrino.
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