Preserving the Lepton Asymmetry in the Brane World

Abstract

In models where the Standard Model spectrum is localized on a brane embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime, we discuss the lepton number violation induced by the emission of right-handed neutrinos from the brane. We show that quite generically the presence of the right-handed neutrinos in the bulk leads to rapid lepton number violating processes which above the electroweak scale would wash away any prior lepton or baryon asymmetry. In order to preserve the lepton asymmetry, the brane-bulk couplings for at least one lepton flavor must be extremely suppressed. We show that this has a natural interpretation in the brane world.