Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe in the Standard Model

Abstract

We study the interactions of quarks and antiquarks with the changing Higgs field during the electroweak phase transition, including quantum mechanical and some thermal effects, with the only source of CP violation being the known CKM phase. The magnitude and sign of the predicted BAU agrees with the observed value, with moderately optimistic assumptions about the dynamics of the phase transition. At present uncertainties related to the dynamics of the ew phase transition and the oversimplifications of our treatment are too great to decide whether or not this is the correct explanation for the presence of remnant matter in our universe, however the present work makes it clear that the minimal standard model cannot be discounted as a contender for explaining this phenomenon.Comment: 121pp plus 14 figures, CERN-TH.6734/93 and RU-93-11. latex. This is an extended version of the preprint originally issued in May, 1993. It corrects some typographical errors and has been somewhat reorganized (e.g., moving more to the appendices) and elaborated (especially the section on analytic results) in order to make it more readily understandable. In addition we include two effects which were previously neglected: $L-R$ mixing due to QCD sphalerons, and a diminution of the electroweak gauge and Higgs effects in the broken phase due to mass corrections in the 1-loop approximation to th