Freeze-in and Freeze-out in a Right-Handed Neutrino Extended MSSM with a Seesaw Mechanism

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of saturating the relic density bound with light Higgsinos. When the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model is extended with right-handed neutrino superfields and the seesaw scale is very low, right-handed sneutrinos can be produced via the freeze-in mechanism. In such a case we can have essentially two independent sources for dark matter, the traditional freeze-out of Higgsinos and the freeze-in of right-handed sneutrinos. The heavier of these two will decay to the lighter species with a delay. We rule out such a scenario for all seesaw models as the lifetime of sterile neutrinos produced over-abundantly via Dodelson-Widrow mechanism exceeds the age of the universe and will contribute to the relic density.

Comments: 13 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; v2 updated title, minor textual and grammatical changes to match published version