HEP/Astro Seminar, Wednesday 4th March 1998

The rate of baryon number violation in hot electroweak theory.

Peter Arnold (Virginia Tech.)

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Abstract

  The universe contains more baryons than anti-baryons.  There are three key
ingredients, attributed to Sakharov, for any theory that attempts to explain
the size of the baryon excess: baryon number violation, C and CP violation,
and a period of disequilibrium in the early universe.  All of these ingredients
are present in standard electroweak theory.  Scenarios for electroweak
baryogenesis depend on the rate of electroweak baryon number violation in the
very hot, symmetry-restored phase of the theory -- a process which is
non-perturbative.  I will discuss the theoretical issues involved in
understanding and calculating this rate.

Wednesday 3:30pm, Smith Lab 4079