TY  - JOUR
AB  - In many phenomenologically interesting models of thermal leptogenesis the heavy neutrinos are non-relativistic when they decay and produce the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We propose a non-relativistic approximation for the corresponding rate equations in the non-resonant case, and a systematic way for computing relativistic corrections. We determine the leading order coefficients in these equations, and the first relativistic corrections. The non-relativistic approximation works remarkably well. It appears to be consistent with results obtained using a Boltzmann equation taking into account the momentum distribution of the heavy neutrinos, while being much simpler. We also compute radiative corrections to some of the coefficients in the rate equations. Their effect is of order 1% in the regime favored by neutrino oscillation data. We obtain the correct leading order lepton number washout rate in this regime, which leads to large (~ 20%) effects compared to previous computations.
DA  - 2014
DO  - 10.1088/1475-7516/2014/02/016
LA  - eng
IS  - 02
M2  - 016
PY  - 2014
SN  - 1475-7516
SP  - 016-
T2  - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
TI  - Non-relativistic leptogenesis
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0070-pub-26586966
Y2  - 2024-11-22T02:25:25
ER  -