Work

Old neutron stars as a new probe of relic neutrinos and sterile neutrino dark matter

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: We study the kinetic cooling (heating) of old neutron stars due to coherent scattering with relic neutrinos (sterile neutrino dark matter) via Standard Model neutral-current interactions. We take into account several important physical effects, such as coherent enhancement, gravitational clustering, neutron degeneracy, Pauli blocking and weak potential. We find that the anomalous cooling of neutron stars due to relic neutrino scattering is difficult to observe. However, the anomalous heating of neutron stars due to coherent scattering with keV-scale sterile neutrino dark matter may be observed by current and future telescopes operating in the optical to near-infrared frequency band, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which would probe hitherto unexplored parameter space in the sterile neutrino mass-mixing plane.

Source: Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.111.055035

Authors: Saurav Das, P. S. Bhupal Dev, Takuya Okawa, Amarjit Soni

Institutions: Washington University in St. Louis, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Language: English

Topic: Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, Fermilab

Award: THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN PARTICLE PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY