Testing keV sterile neutrino dark matter in future direct detection experiments

Abstract

We determine constraints on sterile neutrino warm dark matter through direct detection experiments, taking XENON100, XENON1T, and DARWIN as examples. If keV-scale sterile neutrinos scatter inelastically with bound electrons of the target material, an electron recoil signal is generated. This can be used to set limits on the sterile neutrino mass and its mixing with the active sector. While not competitive with astrophysical constraints from x-ray data, the constraints are the first direct laboratory bounds on sterile neutrino warm dark matter and will be in some parts of parameter space the strongest limits on keV-scale neutrinos.