The generation of dark matter in late decays of quasistable massive particles has been proposed as a viable framework to address the excess of power found in numerical $N$-body simulations for cold dark matter cosmologies. We identify a convenient set of variables to illustrate which requirements need to be satisfied in any generic particle-physics model to address the small-scale problems and to fulfill other astrophysical constraints. As a result of this model-independent analysis, we point out that meeting these requirements in a completely natural way is inherently difficult. In particular, we reexamine the role of gravitinos and Kaluza-Klein gravitons in this context and find them disfavored as a solution to the small-scale problems in case they are dark matter candidates generated in the decay of thermally produced weakly interacting massive particles. We propose right-handed sneutrinos and right-handed Kaluza-Klein neutrinos as alternatives. We find that they are viable dark matter candidates, but that they can contribute to a solution of the small-scale problems only in case the associated Dirac neutrino mass term appears as a subdominant contribution in the neutrino mass matrix.

• Received 5 November 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.77.063514