The B-L Phase Transition: Implications for Cosmology and Neutrinos

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that the hot thermal phase of the early universe is ignited in consequence of the B-L phase transition, which represents the cosmological realization of the spontaneous breaking of the Abelian gauge symmetry associated with B-L, the difference between baryon number B and lepton number L. Prior to the B-L phase transition, the universe experiences a stage of hybrid inflation. Towards the end of inflation, the false vacuum of unbroken B-L decays, which entails tachyonic preheating as well as the production of cosmic strings. The dynamics of the B-L breaking Higgs field and the B-L gauge degrees of freedom, in combination with thermal processes, generate an abundance of heavy (s)neutrinos. These (s)neutrinos decay into radiation, thereby reheating the universe, generating the baryon asymmetry of the universe and setting the stage for the thermal production of gravitinos. We study the B-L phase transition in the full supersymmetric Abelian Higgs model, for which we derive and discuss the Lagrangian in arbitrary and unitary gauge. As for the subsequent reheating process, we formulate the complete set of Boltzmann equations, the solutions of which enable us to give a detailed and time-resolved description of reheating. Assuming the gravitino to be the lightest superparticle (LSP), the requirement of consistency between hybrid inflation, leptogenesis and gravitino dark matter implies relations between neutrino and superparticle masses, in particular a lower bound on the gravitino mass of 10 GeV. Similarly, in the case of very heavy gravitinos, the nonthermal production of pure wino or higgsino LSPs in heavy gravitino decays can account for the observed amount of dark matter, while simultaneously fulfilling the constraints imposed by primordial nucleosynthesis and leptogenesis.

Doctoral thesis, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, University of Hamburg, defended on 9 July 2012; 228 pages, 19 figures, 2 tables; minor corrections as compared to the DESY publication; DESY Publication (2012). ISSN 1435-8085

References in corpus (41)

• Cosmology and the Fate of Dilatation Symmetry
• Observation of Reactor Electron Antineutrino Disappearance in the RENO Experiment
• Indication for the disappearance of reactor electron antineutrinos in the Double Chooz experiment
• Phenomenology with Massive Neutrinos
• Combined results of searches for the standard model Higgs boson in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
• Cosmology and Astrophysics of Minimal Dark Matter
• Combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson using up to 4.9 fb-1 of pp collision data at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• The Well-Tempered Neutralino
• Non-perturbative Effect on Thermal Relic Abundance of Dark Matter
• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Gravitino
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Hadronically and Electromagnetically Decaying Relic Neutral Particles
• A Bitter Pill: The Primordial Lithium Problem Worsens
• Thermal production of gravitinos
• The Lightest Higgs Boson Mass in Pure Gravity Mediation Model
• Particle physics catalysis of thermal Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Observational Tests of Modified Gravity
• The Baryogenesis Window in the MSSM
• Gravitational Waves from Abelian Gauge Fields and Cosmic Strings at Preheating
• Bound-State Effects on Light-Element Abundances in Gravitino Dark Matter Scenarios
• Supersymmetric Hybrid Inflation with Non-Minimal Kahler potential
• Constraints on Supersymmetric Models of Hybrid Inflation
• High Energy Cosmic Rays from the Decay of Gravitino Dark Matter
• Primordial Neutrinos
• Spontaneous B-L Breaking as the Origin of the Hot Early Universe
• Full Boltzmann equations for leptogenesis including scattering
• Gravitino Dark Matter and general neutralino NLSP
• The number density of a charged relic
• Cosmological Constraints on Gravitino LSP Scenario with Sneutrino NLSP
• The Seesaw Mechanism in Quark-Lepton Complementarity
• Effects of reheating on leptogenesis
• Dark matter from late decays and the small-scale structure problems
• The heterotic string yields natural supersymmetry
• Eluding the BBN constraints on the stable gravitino
• Effect of Long-lived Strongly Interacting Relic Particles on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Systematic Parameter Space Search of Extended Quark-Lepton Complementarity
• Broken R-Parity in the Sky and at the LHC
• Matter and Dark Matter from False Vacuum Decay
• WIMP Dark Matter from Gravitino Decays and Leptogenesis
• Wino LSP detection in the light of recent Higgs searches at the LHC
• Light Higgsino in Heavy Gravitino Scenario with Successful Electroweak Symmetry Breaking
• Ultraviolet Regularisation in de Sitter Space

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Fingerprint of Low-Scale Leptogenesis in the Primordial Gravitational-Wave Spectrum
• GUT Physics in the era of the LHC
• Inflation from High-Scale Supersymmetry Breaking
• Trans-Planckian Censorship and Inflation in Grand Unified Theories
• Axion Isocurvature Perturbations in Low-Scale Models of Hybrid Inflation
• Dynamical D-Terms in Supergravity
• Pure Gravity Mediation and Spontaneous B-L Breaking from Strong Dynamics