Mainz 2014 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 111: Theoretische Astroteilchenphysik und Kosmologie

T 111.3: Talk

Thursday, March 27, 2014, 17:15–17:30, P101

Non-relativistic leptogenesis — Dietrich Bödeker and •Mirco Wörmann — Fakultät für Physik, Universität Bielefeld, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany

Leptogenesis is an appealing scenario which can explain the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. It requires the existence of sufficiently heavy right-handed, or sterile neutrinos in addition to the particles of the Standard Model. The decays of these neutrinos can produce a lepton asymmetry which is partially converted to a baryon asymmetry by sphaleron processes.

The heavy neutrinos decay when the temperature of the universe becomes smaller than their mass. At that time the neutrinos become non-relativistic. Thus it seems reasonable to try a non-relativistic description of leptogenesis. This is what we have done in our work. In my talk I will show how one approximates the rate equations and how one systematically calculates corrections. We found that the first relativistic corrections are already small. Therefore, this approximation works very well and is profitable because the rate equations are much simpler compared to an approach using momentum dependent Boltzmann equations.