Boltzmann-like transport theory including quantum coherence

by Kimmo Kainulainen (U. Jyvaskyla, U. Helsinki & CERN-TH)

Wednesday 16 Nov 2011, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

TH Theory Conference Room (CERN)

Many problems eg. in cosmology involve out-of-equilibrium systems where some essential coherent evolution is taking place under the influence of decohering interactions with the background. Examples inlcude neutrino oscillations in the early universe, coherent particle production and coherent baryogenesis, leptogenesis and electroweak baryogenesis. The basic observation, eventually leading to Boltzmann-like evolution equations, is that quantum coherence information is concentrated to new singular k~0-shells (as opposed to the usual mass shells at E^2=k^2+m^2) of the 2-point correlation functions. I will outline a derivation of these equations concentrating on ideas rather than details, starting from the Kadanoff-Baym equations for the 2-point function. I will show some exact solutions for correlation functions including new coherence solutions and some applications of the full formalism, to eg. a toy model of spontaneous baryogenesis.