Computing the Strong Sphaleron Rate

Abstract

We measure the diffusion constant for Chern-Simons number for classical, lattice SU(3) Yang-Mills theory, using a generalization of the topological definition of Chern-Simons number developed recently by Moore and Turok. The diffusion constant is much larger than that for SU(2), even before the ratio of coupling constants has been accounted for, which implies that chiral quark number is efficiently destroyed by strong processes during the electroweak phase transition. For the physical value of α_s we estimate the decay time for chiral quark number to be about 80/T, although various systematics make this number uncertain by about a factor of 2.