Decaying Warm Dark Matter and Neutrino Masses (original) (raw)
2007, Physical Review Letters
Neutrino masses may arise from spontaneous breaking of ungauged lepton number. Because of quantum gravity effects the associated Goldstone boson -the majoron -will pick up a mass. We determine the lifetime and mass required by cosmic microwave background observations so that the massive majoron provides the observed dark matter of the Universe. The majoron decaying dark matter (DDM) scenario fits nicely in models where neutrino masses arise a la seesaw, and may lead to other possible cosmological implications. PACS numbers: 95.35.+d, 95.36.+x, 98.65.Dx, 14.60.Pq, 14.60.St, 13.15.+g, 12.60.Fr A long-standing challenge in particle cosmology is to elucidate the nature of dark matter and its origin. A keV weakly interacting particle could provide a sizeable fraction of the critical density ρ cr = 1.88 × 10 −29 h 2 g/cm 3 and possibly play an important role in structure formation, since the associated Jeans mass lies in the relevant range [1]. Although we now know from neutrino oscillation experiments that neutrinos do have mass [2], recent cosmological data [3] as well as searches for distortions in beta [4] and double beta decay spectra [5] place a stringent limit on the absolute scale of neutrino mass that precludes neutrinos from being viable warm dark matter candidates [6] and from playing a direct role in structure formation.
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