CP violation and electroweak baryogenesis in the Standard Model

Faculty of Physics, University of Bielefeld, Germany Department of Theoretical Physics, Nuclear Physics Institute ASCR, Řež Czech Republic

e-mail: tbrauner@physik.uni-bielefeld.de

Published online: 10 April 2014

Abstract

One of the major unresolved problems in current physics is understanding the origin of the observed asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the Universe. It has become a common lore to claim that the Standard Model of particle physics cannot produce sufficient asymmetry to explain the observation. Our results suggest that this conclusion can be alleviated in the so-called cold electroweak baryogenesis scenario. On the Standard Model side, we continue the program initiated by Smit eight years ago; one derives the effective CP-violating action for the Standard Model bosons and uses the resulting effective theory in numerical simulations. We address a disagreement between two previous computations performed effectively at zero temperature, and demonstrate that it is very important to include temperature effects properly. Our conclusion is that the cold electroweak baryogenesis scenario within the Standard Model is tightly constrained, yet producing enough baryon asymmetry using just known physics still seems possible.