Leptogenesis with heavy neutrino flavours: from density matrix to Boltzmann equations

Leptogenesis with heavy neutrino flavours is discussed within a density matrix formalism. We write the density matrix equation, describing the generation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry, for an arbitrary choice of the right-handed (RH) neutrino masses. For hierarchical RH neutrino masses lying in the fully flavoured regimes, this reduces to multiple-stage Boltzmann equations. In this case we recover and extend results previously derived within a quantum state collapse description. We confirm the generic existence of phantom terms. However, taking into account the effect of gauge interactions, we show that they are washed out at the production with a wash-out rate that is halved compared to that one acting on the total asymmetry. In the N_1-dominated scenario they cancel without contributing to the final baryon asymmetry. In other scenarios they do not in general and they have to be taken into account. We also confirm that there is a (orthogonal) component in the asymmetry produced by the heavier RH neutrinos which completely escapes the washout from the lighter RH neutrinos and show that phantom terms additionally contribute to it. The other (parallel) component is washed out with the usual exponential factor, even for weak washout. Finally, as an illustration, we study the two RH neutrino model in the light of the above findings, showing that phantom terms can contribute to the final asymmetry also in this case.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figures; v2: added Appendix and discussion in 2.2 on lepton-antilepton flavour compositions difference (eq. (28) is a new result); footnotes 4 and 5; new effect of gauge interactions in inducing wash-out of phantom terms but with halved wash-out rate compared to the total asymmetry wash-out rate; matches JCAP versio

Leptogenesis in the two right-handed neutrino model revisited

We revisit leptogenesis in the minimal non-supersymmetric type I see-saw mechanism with two right-handed (RH) neutrinos, including flavour effects and allowing both RH neutrinos N_1 and N_2 to contribute, rather than just the lightest RH neutrino N_1 that has hitherto been considered. By performing scans over parameter space in terms of the single complex angle z of the orthogonal matrix R, for a range of PMNS parameters, we find that in regions around z \sim \pm \pi/2, for the case of a normal mass hierarchy, the N_2 contribution can dominate the contribution to leptogenesis, allowing the lightest RH neutrino mass to be decreased by about an order of magnitude in these regions, down to M_1 \sim 1.3*10^11 GeV for vanishing initial N_2-abundance, with the numerical results supported by analytic estimates. We show that the regions around z \sim \pm \pi /2 correspond to light sequential dominance, so the new results in this paper may be relevant to unified model building.Comment: 41 pages, 10 figures; v2 matches published version in PR

A fuller flavour treatment of N_2-dominated leptogenesis

We discuss N_2-dominated leptogenesis in the presence of flavour dependent effects that have hitherto been neglected, in particular the off-diagonal entries of the flavour coupling matrix that connects the total flavour asymmetries, distributed in different particle species, to the lepton and Higgs doublet asymmetries. We derive analytical formulae for the final asymmetry including the flavour coupling at the N_2-decay stage as well as at the stage of washout by the lightest right-handed neutrino N_1. We point out that in general part of the electron and muon asymmetries can completely escape the wash-out at the production and a total B-L asymmetry can be generated by the lightest RH neutrino wash-out yielding so called phantom leptogenesis. Taking of all these new effects into account can enhance the final asymmetry produced by the decays of the next-to-lightest RH neutrinos by orders of magnitude, opening up new interesting possibilities for N_2-dominated thermal eptogenesis. We illustrate these effects for two models which describe realistic neutrino masses and mixing based on sequential dominance

Active-sterile neutrino oscillations in the early Universe: asymmetry generation at low |delta m^2| and the Landau-Zener approximation

It is well established that active-sterile neutrino oscillations generate large neutrino asymmetries for very small mixing angles ($\sin^2 2\theta_0\lesssim 10^{-4}$), negative values of $\delta m^2$ and provided that $|\delta m^2|\gtrsim 10^{-4} {\rm eV^2}$. By numerically solving the quantum kinetic equations, we show that the generation still occurs at much lower values of $|\delta m^2|$. We also describe the borders of the generation at small mixing angles and show how our numerical results can be analytically understood within the framework of the Landau-Zener approximation thereby extending previous work based on the adiabatic limit. This approximate approach leads to a fair description of the MSW dominated regime of the neutrino asymmetry evolution and is also able to correctly reproduce its final value. We also briefly discuss the impact that neutrino asymmetry generation could have on big bang nucleosynthesis, CMBR and relic neutrinos.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures; to appear on Phys. ReV. D; figure 7 added, new curves in figure 5a, new figure

Focus on the origin of matter

The origin of matter in the Universe is a fascinating cosmological puzzle that has triggered a formidable intellectual enterprise, started in 1967 with the prescient paper by Andrej Sakharov (1967 Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 5 32; 1967 JETP Lett. 52 4; 1991 Sov. Phys.—Usp. 34 392; 1991 Usp. Fiz. Nauk 161 61) aimed at relating a cosmological observation to the fundamental laws of physics, the goal of baryogenesis. A successful model of baryogenesis should ultimately identify the required source of charge parity violation and the origin of the cosmological matter–antimatter asymmetry. This focus issue is not only a review of the main ideas that have been proposed in baryogenesis but should also bear witness to the great vitality of the field and to show how future experimental results could bring a breakthrough in baryogenesis during the coming years. For this reason we selected, out of the multitude of proposed baryogenesis models, those that will more likely experience a significant experimental test during the coming years

Effective Universal Unrestricted Adversarial Attacks using a MOE Approach

Recent studies have shown that Deep Leaning models are susceptible to adversarial examples, which are data, in general images, intentionally modified to fool a machine learning classifier. In this paper, we present a multi-objective nested evolutionary algorithm to generate universal unrestricted adversarial examples in a black-box scenario. The unrestricted attacks are performed through the application of well-known image filters that are available in several image processing libraries, modern cameras, and mobile applications. The multi-objective optimization takes into account not only the attack success rate but also the detection rate. Experimental results showed that this approach is able to create a sequence of filters capable of generating very effective and undetectable attacks

Leptogenesis beyond the limit of hierarchical heavy neutrino masses

We calculate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe in thermal leptogenesis beyond the usual lightest right-handed (RH) neutrino dominated scenario (N_1DS) and in particular beyond the hierarchical limit (HL), M_1 << M_2 << M_3, for the RH neutrino mass spectrum. After providing some orientation among the large variety of models, we first revisit the central role of the N_1DS, with new insights on the dynamics of the asymmetry generation and then discuss the main routes departing from it, focusing on models beyond the HL. We study in detail two examples of `strong-strong' wash-out scenarios: one with `maximal phase' and the limit of very large M_3, studying the effects arising when delta_2=(M_2-M_1)/M_1 is small. We extend analytical methods already applied to the N_1DS showing, for example, that, in the degenerate limit (DL), the efficiency factors of the RH neutrinos become equal with the single decay parameter replaced by the sum. Both cases disprove the misconception that close RH neutrino masses necessarily lead to a final asymmetry enhancement and to a relaxation of the lower bounds on M_1 and on the initial temperature of the radiation-dominated expansion. We also explain why leptogenesis tends to favor normal hierarchy compared to inverted hierarchy for the left-handed neutrino masses.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures; corrected typo in Eq. (67); shortened Introduction, Section 3 and Conclusions; one figure removed; added 2 references; to appear in JCA

Spatially Resolved Chiroptical Spectroscopies Emphasizing Recent Applications to Thin Films of Chiral Organic Dyes

Instrumental techniques able to identify and structurally characterize the aggregation states in thin films of chiral organic π-conjugated materials, from the first-order supramolecular arrangement up to the microscopic and meso-scopic scale, are very helpful for clarifying structure-property relationships. Chiroptical imaging is currently gaining a central role, for its ability of mapping local supramolecular structures in thin films. The present review gives an overview of electronic circular dichroism imaging (ECDi), circularly polarized luminescence imaging (CPLi), and vibrational circular dichroism imaging (VCDi), with a focus on their applications on thin films of chiral organic dyes as case studies