Generation of the relic neutrino asymmetry in a hot plasma of the early Universe

TL;DR

This paper investigates how neutrino asymmetry is generated in the early universe plasma both before and after the electroweak phase transition, revealing a new kinetic mechanism involving Berry curvature and electroweak interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel kinetic approach incorporating Berry curvature to explain neutrino asymmetry generation post-EWPT, extending previous anomaly-based models.

Findings

Neutrino asymmetry can be generated via electroweak interactions with magnetic fields.

The kinetic equation with Berry curvature reproduces known anomaly results.

Maximally helical magnetic fields significantly enhance asymmetry generation.

Abstract

The neutrino asymmetry in the early universe plasma, $n_\nu - n_{\bar \nu}$, is calculated both before and after the electroweak phase transition (EWPT). In the Standard Model before EWPT, the leptogenesis is well known to be driven by the abelian anomaly in a massless hypercharge field. The generation of the neutrino asymmetry in the Higgs phase after EWPT, in its turn, has not been considered previously because of the absence of any quantum anomaly in an external electromagnetic field for such electroneutral particles as neutrino, unlike the Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly for charged left and right polarized massless electrons in the same electromagnetic field. Using the neutrino Boltzmann equation, modified by the Berry curvature term in the momentum space, we establish the violation of the macroscopic neutrino current in plasma after EWPT and exactly reproduce the nonconservation of the lepton current in the symmetric phase before EWPT arising in quantum field theory due to the nonzero lepton hypercharge and corresponding triangle anomaly in an external hypercharge field. In the last case, the non-conservation of the lepton current is derived through the kinetic approach without a computation of corresponding Feynman diagrams. Then the new kinetic equation is applied for the calculation of the neutrino asymmetry accounting for the Berry curvature and the electroweak interaction with background fermions in the Higgs phase. Such an interaction generates a neutrino asymmetry through the electroweak coupling of neutrino currents with electromagnetic fields in plasma, which is $\sim G_\mathrm{F}^2$. It turns out that this effect is especially efficient for maximally helical magnetic fields.