Axion Decay in a Constant Electromagnetic Background Field and at Finite Temperature using World-line Methods

We investigate the radiative decay of the axion into two photons in an external electromagnetic field to one loop order. Our approach is based on the world-line formalism, which is very suitable to take into account the external field to all orders. Afterwards we discuss how the calculation could be generalized to finite temperature.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, corrected and added some references and added some remarks to appendix

Baryogenesis at the Electroweak Phase Transition for a SUSY Model with a Gauge Singlet

SUSY models with a gauge singlet easily allow for a strongly first order electroweak phase transition (EWPT). We discuss the wall profile, in particular transitional CP violation during the EWPT. We calculate CP violating source terms for the charginos in the WKB approximation and solve the relevant transport equations to obtain the generated baryon asymmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of Strong and Electroweak Matter 2000 (SEWM2000), Marseilles; a reference adde

Coherent Baryogenesis and Nonthermal Leptogenesis: A comparison

We present a new mechanism for baryogenesis: at preheating after inflation fermions acquire a varying mass by their coupling to a time dependent field. Their CP-violating mass matrix can generate a charge asymmetry to be transformed into a lepton asymmetry through decay into standard model particles and heavy Majorana neutrinos. In a concrete model of hybrid inflation we compare ``coherent baryogenesis'' with nonthermal leptogenesis by perturbative decay of the inflation condensates.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, contribution to the Proceedings of Strong and Electroweak Matter 2004 (SEWM2004), Helsinki, Finland, June 16-19, 200