Light sterile neutrinos represent a well-motivated extension of the 3-neutrino paradigm. However, the impressive agreement between standard cosmology and data casts doubts on their existence. Here we present a class of scenarios that robustly avoids this tension. In these models the sterile neutrinos are light, chiral states of a new sector interacting with the Standard Model via the right-handed neutrino portal and, crucially, active-sterile neutrino oscillations require a phase transition in the hidden sector. We explore the hidden-couplings/critical-temperature plane and identify regions where several sterile neutrinos can be accommodated. A late phase transition is usually preferred and may also ward off a potential threat posed by the formation of topologically stable defects.
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