Search

In the early Universe above the weak scale, both baryon $B$ and lepton $L$ numbers are violated by nonperturabive effects in the Standard Model while $B-L$ remains conserved. Introducing new physics which violates perturbatively $L$ and/or $B$, one can generate dynamically a nonzero $B-L$ charge and hence a nonzero $B$ charge. In this work, we focus on the former scenario which is also known as leptogenesis. We show how to describe the evolutions of lepton flavor charges taking into account the complete Standard Model lepton flavor and spectator effects in a unified and lepton flavor basis-independent way. The recipe we develop can be applied to any leptogenesis model with arbitrary number of new scalars carrying nonzero hypercharges and is valid for cosmic temperature ranging from $10^{15}$ GeV down to the weak scale. We demonstrate that in order to describe the physics in a basis-independent manner and to include lepton flavor effect consistently it is necessary to describe both left-handed and right-handed lepton charges in terms of density matrices. This is a crucial point since physics should be basis independent. As examples, we apply the formalism to type-I and type-II leptogenesis models where in the latter case, a flavor-covariant formalism is indispensable., 46 pages, 4 figures and 4 appendices. Appendix B is new. Update to match the published version

The lightness of the Standard Model (SM) neutrinos could be understood if their masses were to be generated by new physics at a high scale, through the so-called seesaw mechanism involving heavy fermion singlets. If new physics violates baryon minus lepton number by only a small amount, the heavy fermion singlets as well as the SM neutrinos split into pairs of quasi-Dirac states. At the scale of the fermion singlets, this quasi-Diracness allows to enhance CP violation in their decays and the cosmic matter-antimatter asymmetry can be successfully generated through resonant leptogenesis. At lower scale, this quasi-Diracness results in small SM neutrino mass splitting which can be probed in oscillation experiments. Remarkably, the parameter space for viable leptogenesis spans over the regime relevant for solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillations., Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, PLB version

We develop an extension of the basic inverse seesaw model which addresses simultaneously two of its drawbacks, namely, the lack of explanation of the tiny Majorana mass term $\mu$ for the TeV-scale singlet fermions and the difficulty in achieving successful leptogenesis. Firstly, we investigate systematically leptogenesis within the inverse (and the related linear) seesaw models and show that a successful scenario requires either small Yukawa couplings, implying loss of experimental signals, and/or quasi-degeneracy among singlets mass of different generations, suggesting extra structure must be invoked. Then we move to the analysis of our new framework, which we refer to as hybrid seesaw. This combines the TeV degrees of freedom of the inverse seesaw with those of a high-scale ($M_N\gg$ TeV) seesaw module in such a way as to retain the main features of both pictures: naturally small neutrino masses, successful leptogenesis, and accessible experimental signatures. We show how the required structure can arise from a more fundamental theory with a gauge symmetry or from warped extra dimensions/composite Higgs. We provide a detailed derivation of all the analytical formulae necessary to analyze leptogenesis in this new framework, and discuss the entire gamut of possibilities our scenario encompasses: including scenarios with singlet masses in the enlarged range $M_N \sim 10^6 - 10^{16}$ GeV. The idea of hybrid seesaw was proposed by us in arXiv:1804.06847; here, we substantially elaborate upon and extend earlier results., Comment: 84 pages, 6 figures

Based on a previous work on scenarios where the Standard Model and dark matter particles share a common asymmetry through effective operators at early time in the Universe and later on decouple from each other (not care), in this work, we study in detail the collider phenomenology of these scenarios. In particular, we use the experimental results from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to constrain the viable parameter space. Besides effective operators, we also constrain the parameter space of some representative ultraviolet complete models with experimental results from both the LHC and the Large Electron-Positron Collider. Specifically, we use measurements related to jets + missing transverse energy (MET), di-jets and photon + MET. In the case of ultraviolet models, depending on the assumptions on the couplings and masses of mediators, the derived constraints can become more or less stringent. We consider also the situation where one of the mediators has mass below 100 GeV, in this case we use the ultraviolet model to construct a new effective operator responsible for the sharing of the asymmetry and study its phenomenology., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figues

Since the gravitational interaction is universal, any particle that ever existed, if kinematically accessible, has to be produced through her. We explore the possibility that dark matter is generated purely from gravitational scatterings together with heavy Majorana right-handed neutrinos that are long-lived. Their late decay could inject significant entropy into the thermal bath, diluting both the dark matter abundance and the cosmic baryon asymmetry, thereby imposing various constraints on the reheating dynamics. Additionally to the entropy injection, long-lived right-handed neutrinos could also be responsible for generating the baryon asymmetry through leptogenesis, and hence establish some nontrivial relations between the dark matter and the right-handed properties, and the reheating dynamics, Comment: 14+5 pages, 6 figures. V2 matches version accepted in JCAP

We present a comprehensive study of the three-active plus $N$ sterile neutrino model as a framework for constraining leptonic unitarity violation induced at energy scales much lower than the electroweak scale. We formulate a perturbation theory with expansion in small unitarity violating matrix element $W$ while keeping (non-$W$ suppressed) matter effect to all orders. We show that under the same condition of sterile state masses $0.1\, \text{eV}^2 \lesssim m^2_{J} \lesssim (1-10)\, \text{GeV}^2$ as in vacuum, assuming typical accelerator based long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, one can derive a very simple form of the oscillation probability which consists only of zeroth-order terms with the unique exception of probability leaking term $\mathcal{C}_{\alpha \beta}$ of $\mathcal{O} (W^4)$. We argue, based on our explicit computation to fourth-order in $W$, that all the other terms are negligibly small after taking into account the suppression due to the mass condition for sterile states, rendering the oscillation probability {\em sterile-sector model independent}. Then, we identify a limited energy region in which this suppression is evaded and the effects of order $W^2$ corrections may be observable. Its detection would provide another way, in addition to detecting $\mathcal{C}_{\alpha \beta}$, to distinguish between low-scale and high-scale unitarity violation. We also solve analytically the zeroth-order system in matter with uniform density to provide a basis for numerical evaluation of non-unitary neutrino evolution., Comment: 35 content pages + 12 appendix pages, 4 figures; Several clarifying modifications to match the published version

We consider a mirror world scenario, in which light Dirac neutrinos are generated from a seesaw mechanism and leptogenesis occurs at high scale without violating lepton number. After leptogenesis, the conservation laws of the theory imply the visible baryon-minus-lepton asymmetry to be equal to the mirror baryon-minus-lepton asymmetry. We extend previous work by presenting a detailed study of this Dirac leptogenesis mechanism by constructing the full set of Boltzmann Equations for both cases of unflavored and flavored regimes. We show that $Z_2$ breaking and lepton/mirror lepton flavor effects can be exploited to enhance the final baryon-minus-lepton asymmetry in our world by several orders of magnitude., Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures; abstract and introduction modified, reference to an earlier work on the subject added, section and detailed discussion about flavor enhancement effects added; JCAP version

The cosmic matter-antimatter asymmetry can be generated through baryon number conserving decays of heavy particles that produce asymmetries in the two final states that carry equal and opposite baryon number in which one of them couples directly or indirectly to electroweak sphalerons. The final state that participates in electroweak sphalerons will have its baryon asymmetry partly reprocessed to a lepton asymmetry while the other remains chemically decoupled from the thermal bath or cloistered with its baryon content frozen. The key condition for this mechanism to work is for the decoupled particles to remain cloistered until after electroweak sphalerons freeze out and then the subsequent decays of the particles will inject an unbalanced baryon asymmetry in the thermal bath giving rise to a net nonzero baryon asymmetry. Such a condition implies weakly coupled particles and if produced in a collider could give signatures of long-lived (on a collider timescale) particles. We discuss such a scenario with a type-I seesaw model extended by a new colored scalar.

Leptogenesis could have occurred at temperatures much lower than generally thought, if the cosmological history of the Universe underwent a period of accelerated expansion, as is predicted for example in a class of scalar-tensor theories of gravitation. We discuss how non-standard cosmologies can open new pathways for low scale leptogenesis. Within these scenarios, direct tests of leptogenesis could also provide information on the very early times Universe evolution, corresponding to temperatures larger than the TeV., 21 pages, 4 figures

The focus of this chapter lies on the possible experimental tests of leptogenesis scenarios. We consider both leptogenesis generated from oscillations, as well as leptogenesis from out-of-equilibrium decays. As the Akhmedov-Rubakov-Smirnov (ARS) mechanism allows for heavy neutrinos in the GeV range, this opens up a plethora of possible experimental tests, e.g. at neutrino oscillation experiments, neutrinoless double beta decay, and direct searches for neutral heavy leptons at future facilities. In contrast, testing leptogenesis from out-of-equilibrium decays is a quite difficult task. We comment on the necessary conditions for having successful leptogenesis at the TeV-scale. We further discuss possible realizations and their model specific testability in extended seesaw models, models with extended gauge sectors, and supersymmetric leptogenesis. Not being able to test high-scale leptogenesis directly, we present a way to falsify such scenarios by focusing on their washout processes. This is discussed specifically for the left-right symmetric model and the observation of a heavy $W_R$, as well as model independently when measuring $\Delta L = 2$ washout processes at the LHC or neutrinoless double beta decay., Comment: 99 pages, 29 figures. Chapter 5 of the review volume "Leptogenesis: Current Challenges for Model Building, Phenomenology and Non-Equilibrium Field Theory."

Recent results from the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature (EDGES) show an anomalous spectral feature at redshifts $z\sim 15-20$ in its 21-cm absorption signal. This deviation from cosmological predictions can be understood as a consequence of physics that either lower the hydrogen spin temperature or increases the radiation temperature through the injection of soft photons in the bath. In the latter case, standard model neutrino decays $\nu_i \to \nu_j\,\gamma$ induced by effective magnetic and electric transition moments ($\mu_\text{eff}$) are precluded by the tight astrophysical constraints on $\mu_\text{eff}$. We show that if mirror neutrinos are present in the bath at early times, an analogous mechanism in the mirror sector can lead to a population of mirror photons that are then "processed" into visible photons through resonant conversion, thus accounting for the EDGES signal. We point out that the mechanism can work for mirror neutrinos which are either heavier than or degenerate with the standard model (SM) neutrinos, a scenario naturally realized in mirror twin Higgs models., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures

If leptonic unitarity is violated by new physics at an energy scale much lower than the electroweak scale, which we call low-scale unitarity violation, it has different characteristic features from those expected in unitarity violation at high-energy scales. They include maintaining flavor universality and absence of zero-distance flavor transition. We present a framework for testing such unitarity violation at low energies by neutrino oscillation experiments. Starting from the unitary 3 active plus $N$ (arbitrary integer) sterile neutrino model we show that by restricting the active-sterile and sterile-sterile neutrino mass squared differences to $\gtrsim$ 0.1 eV$^2$ the oscillation probability in the $(3+N)$ model becomes insensitive to details of the sterile sector, providing a nearly model-independent framework for testing low-scale unitarity violation. Yet, the presence of the sterile sector leaves trace as a constant probability leaking term, which distinguishes low-scale unitarity violation from the high-scale one. The non-unitary mixing matrix in the active neutrino subspace is common for the both cases. We analyze how severely the unitarity violation can be constrained in $\nu_{e}$-row by taking a JUNO-like setting to simulate medium baseline reactor experiments. Possible modification of the features of the $(3+N)$ model due to matter effect is discussed to first order in the matter potential., Comment: Updated to match the published version in JHEP. Added section 5.3 on current constraints on unitarity violation. Added analysis for the case of reactor neutrino flux uncertainty of 6% in section 5

We consider scenarios where Dark Matter (DM) particles carry baryon and/or lepton numbers, which can be defined if there exist operators connecting the dark to the visible sector. As a result, the DM fields become intimately linked to the Standard Model (SM) ones and can be maximally asymmetric just like the ordinary matter. In particular, we discuss minimal scenarios where the DM is a complex scalar or a Dirac fermion coupled to operators with nonzero baryon and/or lepton numbers, and that consist of only SM fields. We consider an initial asymmetry stored in either the SM or the DM sector; the main role of these operators is to properly $share$ the asymmetry between the two sectors, in accordance with observations. After the chemical decoupling, the DM and SM sectors do $not$ $care$ about each other as there is only an ineffective communication between them. Once the DM mass is specified, the Wilson coefficients of these operators are fixed by the requirement of the correct transfer of the asymmetry. We study the phenomenology of this framework at colliders, direct detection and indirect detection experiments. In particular, the LHC phenomenology is very rich and can be tested in different channels such as the two same-sign leptons with two jets, monojet and monojet with a monolepton., Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures. v2: version published in JCAP

We describe a simple experiment to observe the fission of an electrically charged liquid droplet. Rayleigh charge instability occurs when the electrostatic repulsion of charges on the surface of a droplet overcomes the droplet surface tension and tears the droplet apart. The experiment requires a low-power laser, simple optics, a CCD camera, and a quadrupole trap, which can be constructed using widely available and relatively straightforward instructions. The experiment was performed primarily by undergraduates as part of their senior research projects and can be implemented readily in an advanced undergraduate physics laboratory course.

Discrete Abelian symmetries (${\mathbb{Z}}_{N}$) are a common ``artifact'' of beyond the standard model physics models. They provide different avenues for constructing consistent scenarios for lepton and quark mixing patterns, radiative neutrino mass generation as well as dark matter stabilization. We argue that these symmetries can arise from the spontaneous breaking of the Abelian $U(1)$ factors contained in the global flavor symmetry transformations of the gauge-invariant kinetic Lagrangian. This will be the case provided the ultraviolet completion responsible for the Yukawa structure involves scalar fields carrying nontrivial $U(1)$ charges. Guided by minimality criteria, we demonstrate the viability of this approach with two examples: first, we derive the ``scotogenic'' model Lagrangian, and second, we construct a setup where the spontaneous symmetry-breaking pattern leads to a ${\mathbb{Z}}_{3}$ symmetry which enables dark matter stability as well as neutrino mass generation at the two-loop order. This generic approach can be used to derive many other models, with residual ${\mathbb{Z}}_{N}$ or ${\mathbb{Z}}_{{N}_{1}}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\ensuremath{\cdots}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbb{Z}}_{{N}_{k}}$ symmetries, establishing an intriguing link between flavor symmetries, neutrino masses and dark matter.

We discuss possible interpretations of the 37 high energy neutrino events observed by the IceCube experiment in the South Pole. We examine the possibility to explain the observed neutrino spectrum exclusively by the decays of a heavy long-lived particle of mass in the PeV range. We compare this with the standard scenario, namely, a single power-law spectrum related to neutrinos produced by astrophysical sources and a viable hybrid situation where the spectrum is a product of two components: a power-law and the long-lived particle decays. We present a simple extension of the Standard Model that could account for the heavy particle decays that are needed in order to explain the data. We show that the current data equally supports all above scenarios and try to evaluate the exposure needed in order to falsify them in the future., Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures; Re-analysis to include higher energy bins resulting in slight changes in numerics and figures while the conclusions remain unaffected. References updated and typos corrected to match the published version

Soft leptogenesis is a mechanism which generates the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe via the out-of-equilibrium decays of heavy sneutrinos in which soft supersymmetry breaking terms play two important roles: they provide the required $CP$ violation and give rise to the mass splitting between otherwise degenerate sneutrino mass eigenstates within a single generation. This mechanism is interesting because it can be successful at the lower temperature regime $T \lesssim 10^9$ GeV in which the conflict with the overproduction of gravitinos can possibly be avoided. In earlier works, the leading $CP$ violation is found to be nonzero only if finite temperature effects are included. By considering generic soft trilinear couplings, we find two interesting consequences: (1) the leading $CP$ violation can be nonzero even at zero temperature realizing nonthermal $CP$ violation, and (2) the $CP$ violation is sufficient even far away from the resonant regime allowing soft supersymmetry breaking parameters to assume natural values at around the TeV scale. We discuss phenomenological constraints on such scenarios and conclude that the contributions to charged lepton flavor violating processes are close to the sensitivities of present and future experiments., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures. We have included a new figure showing the result of numerical analysis. Updated to match the published version in PRD

We consider $SO(10)$ Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) with vacuum expectation values (vevs) for fermion masses in the $\mathbf{10} + \mathbf{\overline{126}}$ representation. We show that the baryon asymmetry generated via leptogenesis is completely determined in terms of measured low energy observables and of one single high energy parameter related to the ratio of the $\mathbf{10}$ and $\mathbf{\overline{126}}$ $SU(2)$ doublet vevs. We identify new decay channels for the heavy Majorana neutrinos into $SU(2)$ singlet leptons $e^c$ which can sizeably affect the size of the resulting baryon asymmetry. We describe how to equip $SO(10)$ fits to low energy data with the additional constraint of successful leptogenesis, and we apply this procedure to the fits carried out in ref.~\cite{Dueck:2013gca}. We show that a baryon asymmetry in perfect agreement with observations is obtained., Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures; references added and typos corrected to match the published version

A ${\mathcal{G}}_{\mathcal{F}}=SU(3{)}_{Q}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}SU(3{)}_{u}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}SU(3{)}_{d}$ invariant scalar potential breaking spontaneously the quark flavor symmetry can explain the standard model flavor puzzle. The approximate alignment in flavor space of the vacuum expectation values of the up and down ``Yukawa fields'' is explained as a dynamical effect, and the observed quark mixing angles, the weak $CP$ violating phase, and hierarchical quark masses can be reproduced without introducing hierarchical parameters.

The tree level potential for a scalar multiplet of `Yukawa fields' $Y$ for one type of quarks admits the promising vacuum configuration $ \propto {\rm diag}(0,0,1)$ that breaks spontaneously $SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R$ flavour symmetry. We investigate whether the vanishing entries could be lifted to nonvanishing values by slightly perturbing the potential, thus providing a mechanism to generate the Yukawa hierarchies. For theories where at the lowest order the only massless states are Nambu-Goldstone bosons we find, as a general result, that the structure of the tree-level vacuum is perturbatively stable against corrections from scalar loops or higher dimensional operators. We discuss the reasons for this stability, and give an explicit illustration in the case of loop corrections by direct computation of the one-loop effective potential of Yukawa fields. Nevertheless, a hierarchical configuration $ \propto {\rm diag}(\epsilon',\epsilon,1)$ (with $\epsilon', \epsilon\ll 1$) can be generated by enlarging the scalar Yukawa sector. We present a simple model in which spontaneous breaking of the flavour symmetry can give rise to the fermion mass hierarchies.

Leptogenesis is a class of scenarios in which the cosmic baryon asymmetry originates from an initial lepton asymmetry generated in the decays of heavy sterile neutrinos in the early Universe. We explain why leptogenesis is an appealing mechanism for baryogenesis. We review its motivations, the basic ingredients, and describe subclasses of effects, like those of lepton flavours, spectator processes, scatterings, finite temperature corrections, the role of the heavier sterile neutrinos and quantum corrections. We then address leptogenesis in supersymmetric scenarios, as well as some other popular variations of the basic leptogenesis framework., 60 pages, 4 figures. Published in Special Issue on Neutrino Physics, Advances in High Energy Physics Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2012

We show that by adding to the standard model plus the type I seesaw different types of scalars, it is possible to construct models that satisfy the three requirements of (i) generating neutrino masses at the TeV scale, (ii) being testable at the LHC via direct production of new states, and (iii) allowing for leptogenesis at temperatures $T\sim O$(TeV)., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, references updated; A new section "Constraints from FCNC" added, results unchanged; Version accepted by JHEP

A promising approach to the Standard Model flavor puzzle is based on the idea that the $SU(3)^3$ quark-flavor symmetry is spontaneously broken by vacuum expectation values of `Yukawa fields' which minimize the symmetry invariant scalar potential at configurations corresponding to the observed quark masses and mixing angles. We show that this approach provides a simple and elegant explanation for CP conservation in strong interactions., Comment: 4 pages

The cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry can arise from the baryon number conserving CP asymmetry in two body decays of heavy particles, when the two final states carry equal and opposite baryon number, and one couples directly or indirectly to electroweak sphalerons so that its baryon asymmetry gets partly reprocessed into a lepton asymmetry, while the other remains chemically decoupled from the thermal bath with its baryon content frozen. After sphaleron switchoff the decay of the decoupled particles inject in the thermal plasma an unbalanced baryon asymmetry, giving rise to baryogenesis. We highlight the features of this mechanism in a type-I seesaw model extended by adding a new colored scalar coupled to the heavy Majorana neutrinos. If the colored scalar has an O(TeV) mass, it would leave at the LHC a characteristic signature throughout all layers of the detectors., Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; V2 references added, accepted for publication in JCAP

We consider the see-saw mechanism within a non-supersymmetric SO(10) model. By assuming the SO(10) quark-lepton symmetry, and after imposing suitable conditions that ensure that the right-handed (RH) neutrino masses are at most mildly hierarchical (compact RH spectrum) we obtain a surprisingly predictive scenario. The absolute neutrino mass scale, the Dirac and the two Majorana phases of the neutrino mixing matrix remain determined in terms of the set of already measured low energy observables, modulo a discrete ambiguity in the signs of two neutrino mixing angles and of the Dirac phase. The RH neutrinos mass spectrum is also predicted, as well as the size and sign of the leptogenesis CP asymmetries. We compute the cosmological baryon asymmetry generated through leptogenesis and obtain the correct sign and a size compatible with observations., 18 pages, 2 figures; minor changes, version accepted for publication in PRD

The appearance of spin-1 resonances associated to the electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) sector is expected in many extensions of the Standard Model. We analyze the CERN Large Hadron Collider potential to probe the spin of possible new charged and neutral vector resonances through the purely leptonic processes pp --> Z^\prime --> l^+ l^{\prime -} Emiss_T, and pp --> W^\prime --> l^{\prime \pm} l^+ l^- Emiss_T, with l, l^\prime = e or ��. We perform a model independent analysis and demonstrate that the spin of the new states can be determined with 99% CL in a large fraction of the parameter space where these resonances can be observed with 100 fb^{-1}. We show that the best sensitivity to the spin is obtained by directly studying correlations between the final state leptons, without the need of reconstructing the events in their center-of-mass frames., 11 pages, 10 figures, references added, matches published version

Soft leptogenesis is a scenario in which the cosmic baryon asymmetry is produced from a lepton asymmetry generated in the decays of heavy sneutrinos (the partners of the singlet neutrinos of the seesaw) and where the relevant sources of CP violation are the complex phases of soft supersymmetry-breaking terms. We explain the motivations for soft leptogenesis, and review its basic ingredients: the different CP-violating contributions, the crucial role played by thermal corrections, and the enhancement of the efficiency from lepton flavour effects. We also discuss the high temperature regime $T > 10^7$ GeV in which the cosmic baryon asymmetry originates from an initial asymmetry of an anomalous $R$-charge, and soft leptogenesis reembodies in $R$-genesis., References updated. Some minor corrections to match the published version

We propose the inverse seesaw mechanism as a way to understand small Majorana masses for neutrinos in warped extra dimension models with seesaw scale in the TeV range. The ultra-small lepton number violation needed in implementing inverse seesaw mechanism in 4D models is explained in this model as a consequence of lepton number breaking occurring on the Planck brane. We construct realistic models based on this idea that fit observed neutrino oscillation data for both normal and inverted mass patterns. We compute the corrections to light neutrino masses from the Kaluza-Klein modes and show that they are small in the parameter range of interest. Another feature of the model is that the absence of global parity anomaly implies the existence of at least one light sterile neutrino with sterile and active neutrino mixing in the range suggested by the LSND and MiniBooNE observations., Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure

We discuss the effective theory appropriate for studying soft leptogenesis at temperatures T>10^7 GeV. In this regime, the main source of the B-L asymmetry is the CP asymmetry of a new anomalous R-charge that couple to generalized anomalous electroweak processes. Baryogenesis thus occurs mainly through R-genesis, and with an efficiency that can be up to two orders of magnitude larger than in usual estimates. Contrary to common belief, a sizeable baryon asymmetry is generated also when thermal corrections to the CP asymmetries in sneutrino decays are neglected which, in soft leptogenesis, implyes vanishing lepton-flavour CP asymmetries. We present general Boltzmann equations for soft leptogenesis that are valid in all temperature regimes., 41 pages, 5 figures, added 4 references

Successful Soft Leptogenesis (SL) requires a relatively low mass scale for the SU(2) singlet neutrinos of $10^5-10^8$ GeV. However, conventional SL (unflavoured) requires an unnaturally small soft supersymmetry(SUSY)-breaking bilinear $B \ll \mathcal{O}({\rm TeV})$ coupling for successful leptogenesis. On the other hand, in this regime, the interactions mediated by $\tau$, $\mu$ (and even $e$) charged lepton Yukawa interactions are in equilibrium, making the lepton number asymmetries and the washouts flavour dependent. Hence, it is crucial to take into account the flavour effects. Considering a general soft SUSY-breaking trilinear $A$ couplings, it is possible to enhance the efficiency up to $\mathcal{O}(1000)$ compared to the unflavoured case. With the enhanced efficiency, we can raise the $B$ up to TeV scale for successful leptogenesis. Taking into account the low energy constraints, we verify that the fast lepton flavour violation processes induced by the soft SUSY-breaking slepton masses would not destroy the enhancement., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Talk given at the 2nd Young Researchers Workshop "Physics Challenges in the LHC Era", Frascati, May 10 and 13, 2010

We study leptogenesis in the supersymmetric standard model plus the seesaw. We identify important qualitative differences that characterize supersymmetric leptogenesis with respect to the non-supersymmetric case. The lepton number asymmetries in fermions and scalars do not equilibrate, and are related via a non-vanishing gaugino chemical potential. Due to the presence of new anomalous symmetries, electroweak sphalerons couple to winos and higgsinos, and QCD sphalerons couple to gluinos, thus modifying the corresponding chemical equilibrium conditions. A new constraint on particles chemical potentials corresponding to an exactly conserved $R$-charge, that also involves the number density asymmetry of the heavy sneutrinos, appears. These new ingredients determine the $3\times 4$ matrices that mix up the density asymmetries of the lepton flavours and of the heavy sneutrinos. We explain why in all temperature ranges the particle thermodynamic system is characterized by the same number of independent quantities. Numerical differences with respect to usual treatment remain at the ${\cal O}(1)$ level., 30 pages, 2 figures. Typos corrected, one reference added. Version published in JCAP

We revisit flavour effects in soft leptogenesis relaxing the assumption of universality for the soft supersymmetry breaking terms. We find that with respect to the case in which the heavy sneutrinos decay with equal rates and equal CP asymmetries for all lepton flavours, hierarchical flavour configurations can enhance the efficiency by more than two orders of magnitude. This translates in more than three order of magnitude with respect to the one-flavour approximation. We verify that lepton flavour equilibration effects related to off-diagonal soft slepton masses are ineffective for damping these large enhancements. We show that soft leptogenesis can be successful for unusual values of the relevant parameters, allowing for $B\sim {\cal O}({\rm TeV})$ and for values of the washout parameter up to $m_{\rm eff}/m_* \sim 5\times 10^{3}$., 23 pages, 5 figures postscript, Minor changes to match the published version in JHEP

We show that when the relevant CP violating interactions in leptogenesis are fast, the different matter density asymmetries are determined at each instant by a balance condition between the amount of asymmetry being created and destroyed. This fact allows to understand in a simple way many features of leptogenesis in the strong washout regime. In particular, we find some non-trivial effects of flavour changing interactions that conserve lepton number, which are specially relevant in models for leptogenesis that rely heavily on flavour effects., Comment: V2: To match published version in JCAP. Minor changes, including one figure, with respect to V1. 17 pages, 4 figures

We study the contributions to CP violation in right-handed sneutrino decays induced by soft supersymmetry-breaking gaugino masses including flavour effects and paying special attention to the role of thermal corrections. Using a field-theoretical as well as a quantum mechanical approach we compute the CP asymmetries and we conclude that for all the soft-supersymmetry breaking sources of CP violation considered, an exact cancellation between the asymmetries produced in the fermionic and bosonic channels occurs at T=0 up to second order in soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters. Once thermal effects are included the new sources of CP violation induced by supersymmetry-breaking gaugino masses can be sizeable and they can produce the observed baryon asymmetry for conventional values of the B parameter., 20 pages, 4 figures

We study the impact of flavour in ``soft leptogenesis'' (leptogenesis induced by soft supersymmetry breaking terms). We address the question of how flavour effects can affect the region of parameters in which successful soft leptogenesis induced by CP violation in the right-handed sneutrino mixing is possible. We find that for decays which occur in the intermediate to strong washout regimes for all flavours, the produced total $B-L$ asymmetry can be up to a factor ${\cal O}(30)$ larger than the one predicted with flavour effects being neglected. This enhancement, permits slightly larger values of the required lepton violating soft bilinear term., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures. Version accepted in JHEP. Results unchanged