Thermal leptogenesis in the presence of helical hypermagnetic fields

Abstract

One of the major challenges in particle physics and cosmology is understanding why there is an asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the Universe. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is thermal leptogenesis, which involves the addition of at least two right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) to the standard model. Another possible explanation is baryogenesis through the hypermagnetic fields which involves the ${\rm U}_Y(1)$ anomaly and helical hypermagnetic fields in the early Universe. In this paper, after reviewing the thermal leptogenesis and baryogenesis through the ${\rm U}_Y(1)$ anomaly, we investigate the simplest model that combines these two scenarios and explore the parameter space for optimal results. Our results show that the combined scenario permits a specific region of parameter space that is not covered by either one separately. In fact, the minimum required mass scale of the RHN and strength of initial hypermagnetic helicity are reduced by one order of magnitude in our model. Moreover, we find that in the combined scenario, leptogenesis and baryogenesis through the ${\rm U}_Y(1)$ anomaly can either amplify or reduce the effect of each other, i.e., the generated asymmetry, depending on the sign of the helical hypermagnetic fields. Finally, we show the surprising result that a drastic amplification can occur even when the initial abundance of RHN is its equilibrium value for leptogenesis.