Einstein-Yang-Mills sphalerons and fermion number non-conservation

Abstract

It is argued that the sphaleron solutions appearing in the Einstein-Yang-Mills theory are important in the transition processes at extremely high energies. Namely, when the energy exceeds the sphaleron mass, the existence of these solutions ensures constructive interference on the set of the overbarrier transition histories interpolating between distinct topological sectors of the theory. This has to lead to an enhancement of the transition rate and the related non-conservation of the fermion number.