The transition magnetic moment of a sterile-to-active neutrino conversion
gives rise to not only radiative decay of a sterile neutrino, but also its
non-standard interaction (NSI) with matter. For sterile neutrinos of keV-mass
as dark matter candidates, their decay signals are actively searched for in
cosmic X-ray spectra. In this work, we consider the NSI that leads to atomic
ionization, which can be detected by direct dark matter experiments. It is
found that this inelastic scattering process for a nonrelativistic sterile
neutrino has a pronounced enhancement in the differential cross section at
energy transfer about half of its mass, manifesting experimentally as peaks in
the measurable energy spectra. The enhancement effects gradually smear out as
the sterile neutrino becomes relativistic. Using data taken with germanium
detectors that have fine energy resolution in keV and sub-keV regimes,
constraints on sterile neutrino mass and its transition magnetic moment are
derived and compared with those from astrophysical observations
