A Fresh Look at keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter from Frozen-In Scalars
  Sterile neutrinos with a mass of a few keV can serve as cosmological warm
dark matter. We study the production of keV sterile neutrinos in the early
universe from the decay of a frozen-in scalar. Previous studies focused on
heavy frozen-in scalars with masses above the Higgs mass leading to a hot
spectrum for sterile neutrinos with masses below 8-10 keV. Motivated by the
recent hints for an X-ray line at 3.55 keV, we extend the analysis to lighter
frozen-in scalars, which allow for a cooler spectrum. Below the electroweak
phase transition, several qualitatively new channels start contributing. The
most important ones are annihilation into electroweak vector bosons,
particularly W-bosons as well as Higgs decay into pairs of frozen-in scalars
when kinematically allowed.
