Non-local Electroweak Baryogenesis Part I : Thin Wall Regime

Abstract

We investigate `non-local' schemes for baryogenesis at a first order electroweak phase transition, in which the effects of a $CP$ violating condensate on the bubble wall propagate into the unbroken phase where the sphaleron rate is unsupressed. Such a condensate exists in multi-Higgs extensions of the standard model, and may exist due to an instability in the minimal standard model. In this paper we first discuss the general problem of determining the $CP$ violating perturbations, distinguishing two regimes (quantum and classical). We then give an analytic treatment of quantum mechanical reflection in the thin wall regime, in which interactions with the plasma can be neglected as a particle propagates across the wall. We focus on leptons because of their much weaker coupling to the plasma. We argue that they are likely to be accurately described by this calculation, but quarks are not. The relative magnitude of the baryon asymmetry produced for different fermions depends on their relative Yukawa couplings ({\it not} their zero temperature masses), their transport properties and their interactions. We calculate the baryon asymmetry for various parameter ranges and conclude that asymmetries comparable with observations can be generated.