Baryogenesis through lepton number violation

Abstract

The most promising scenarios of baryogenesis seems to be the one through lepton number violation. Lepton number violation through a Majarana mass of the right-handed neutrinos can generate a lepton asymmetry of the universe when the right-handed neutrinos decay. The left-handed neutrinos get small Majorana masses through see-saw mechanism in these models. A triplet higgs scalar violating lepton number explicitly through its couplings to two leptons or two higgs doublets can also naturally give small Majorana masses to the left-handed neutrinos and also generate a lepton asymmetry of the universe. We review both these models of leptogenesis, where the lepton number asymmetry then gets converted to a baryon asymmetry of the universe before the electroweak phase transition.