Non-Conservation of Baryon Number at High Energy in the Standard Model

Author: Espinosa, Olivier R.

Year: 1990

Degree: Dissertation (Ph.D.)

Advisor: Preskill, John P.

Committee Members: Preskill, John P.; Frautschi, Steven C.; McKeown, Robert D.; Zachariasen, Fredrik

Option: Physics

DOI: 10.7907/74cf-xv77

Abstract

We calculate the coupling constant and energy dependence of the scattering amplitudes for baryon- and lepton-number violating processes in the context of the standard model, in the semiclassical approximation. It is found that, to leading order in this expansion, the spin-averaged total cross sections for these processes grow as a power of the CM-energy and thus violate the bound imposed by unitarity. This result has a twofold implication: first, perturbation theory in the instanton sector of the electroweak theory must break down at high energies and, second, it strongly suggests that baryon and lepton number non-conservation might be observed experimentally at energies accesible in the near future.

Files