Quantum mechanics of leptogenesis

Abstract

Leptogenesis is an attractive mechanism that simultaneously explains the matterantimatter asymmetry of the universe as well as the small masses of the standard model neutrinos. This is performed by naturally extending the standard model with the insertion of right handed neutrinos. Leptogenesis is usually studied via the semi-classical Boltzmann equations. However, these equations suffer from basic conceptual problems and they lack to include many quantum phenomena, such as memory effects and coherence oscillations. In order to fully describe leptogenesis, a full quantum treatment is required. In this work we show how to address leptogenesis systematically in a purely quantum way. We start by studying scalar and fermionic excitations in a plasma by solving the Kadanoff-Baym equations of motion for Green's functions, with significant emphasis on the initial and boundary conditions of the solutions. We compute analytically the asymmetry generated from the departure of equilibrium of a particle in a thermal bath. The comparison with the semi-classical Boltzmann approach is also analysed, leading to a qualitative difference between both methods. The non-locality of the Kadanoff-Baym equations shows how off-shell effects can have a huge impact on the generated asymmetry, effects that cannot be studied with the Boltzmann equations. The insertion of standard model interactions like the decay widths for the particles of the bath is also discussed. We explain how with a trivial insertion of these widths we regain locality on the processes, i.e. we regain the Boltzmann equations.