Inert-sterile neutrino: Cold or warm dark matter candidate

In usual particle models, sterile neutrinos can account for the dark matter of the Universe only if they have masses in the keV range and are warm dark matter. Stringent cosmological and astrophysical bounds, in particular, imposed by x-ray observations, apply to them. We point out that in a particular variation of the inert doublet model, sterile neutrinos can account for the dark matter in the Universe and may be either cold or warm dark matter candidates, even for masses much above the keV range. These inert-sterile neutrinos, produced nonthermally in the early Universe, would be stable and have very small couplings to standard model particles, rendering very difficult their detection in either direct or indirect dark matter searches. Their existence could be revealed only by discovering other particles of the model in collider experiments.