Interactions of keV sterile neutrinos with matter

Understand

A sterile neutrino with mass of several keV is a well-motivated dark-matter candidate, and it can also explain the observed velocities of pulsars via anisotropic emission of sterile neutrinos from a cooling neutron star.

• We discuss the interactions of such relic particles with matter and comment on the prospects of future direct detection experiments.
• A relic sterile neutrino can interact, via sterile-active mixing, with matter fermions by means of electroweak currents, with the final state containing a relativistic active neutrino.
• The recoil momentum impacted onto a matter fermion is determined by the sterile neutrino mass and is enough to ionize atoms and flip the spins of nuclei.