Color Breaking Baryogenesis

We propose a scenario that generates the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe through a multi--step phase transition in which SU(3) color symmetry is first broken and then restored. A spontaneous violation of $B-L$ conservation leads to a contribution to the baryon asymmetry that becomes negligible in the final phase. The baryon asymmetry is therefore produced exclusively through the electroweak mechanism in the intermediate phase. We illustrate this scenario with a simple model that reproduces the observed baryon asymmetry. We discuss how future electric dipole moment and collider searches may probe this scenario, though future EDM searches would require an improved sensitivity of several orders of magnitude.Comment: Updated to comply with referees suggestions and mirror published versio

TeV Lepton Number Violation: From Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay to the LHC

We analyze the sensitivity of next-generation tonne-scale neutrinoless double $\beta$-decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) experiments and searches for same-sign di-electrons plus jets at the Large Hadron Collider to TeV scale lepton number violating interactions. Taking into account previously unaccounted for physics and detector backgrounds at the LHC, renormalization group evolution, and long-range contributions to $0\nu\beta\beta$ nuclear matrix elements, we find that the reach of tonne-scale $0\nu\beta\beta$ generally exceeds that of the LHC. However, for a range of heavy particle masses near the TeV scale, the high luminosity LHC and tonne-scale $0\nu\beta\beta$ may provide complementary probes.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Stop-Catalyzed Baryogenesis Beyond the MSSM

Non-minimal supersymmetric models that predict a tree-level Higgs mass above the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) bound are well motivated by naturalness considerations. Indirect constraints on the stop sector parameters of such models are significantly relaxed compared to the MSSM; in particular, both stops can have weak-scale masses. We revisit the stop-catalyzed electroweak baryogenesis (EWB) scenario in this context. We find that the LHC measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates already rule out the possibility of stop-catalyzed EWB. We also introduce a gauge-invariant analysis framework that may generalize to other scenarios in which interactions outside the gauge sector drive the electroweak phase transition.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. v2: Minor changes. Added appendix with the details of the higgs couplings fit. References adde