Speaker
Description
The Standard Model predicts baryon number violation through the anomalous U(1) B+L symmetry, but in vacuum this process is exponentially suppressed by the sphaleron energy barrier and therefore it has never been observed. The suppression disappears in the high temperatures of the early Universe, making this an important ingredient for explaining the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. In this talk, I demonstrate that strong magnetic fields would also catalyse the process, to the extent that the sphaleron barrier disappears completely above the upper Ambjorn-Olesen field strength of around 10^20 tesla. Magnetic fields of this strength are currently beyond our reach but could be produced for a very short time with a heavy ion collider encircling the whole Moon. I discuss whether this could allow us to achieve electroweak baryon number violation in the lab.