Unveiling secret interactions among sterile neutrinos with big-bang nucleosynthesis

Short-baseline neutrino anomalies suggest the existence of low-mass [m~O(1) eV] sterile neutrinos νₛ. These would be efficiently produced in the early universe by oscillations with active neutrino species, leading to a thermal population of the sterile states seemingly incompatible with cosmological observations. In order to relieve this tension it has been recently speculated that new ``secret'' interactions among sterile neutrinos, mediated by a massive gauge boson X (with MXMW), can inhibit or suppress the sterile neutrino thermalization, due to the production of a large matter potential term. We note however, that they also generate strong collisional terms in the sterile neutrino sector that induce an efficient sterile neutrino production after a resonance in matter is encountered, increasing their contribution to the number of relativistic particle species Neff. Moreover, for values of the parameters of the νₛ-νₛ interaction for which the resonance takes place at temperature Tfew MeV, significant distortions are produced in the electron (anti)neutrino spectra, altering the abundance of light element in big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Using the present determination of ⁴He and deuterium primordial abundances we determine the BBN constraints on the model parameters. We find that ²H/H density ratio exclude much of the parameter space if one assumes a baryon density at the best fit value of Planck experiment, ΩBh²=0.02207, while bounds become weaker for a higher ΩBh²=0.02261, the 95% C.L. upper bound of Planck. Due to the large error on its experimental determination, the helium mass fraction Yₚ gives no significant bounds.