Zachary David

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Colladay, Donald

Area of Concentration

Physics

Abstract

In this thesis the Standard Model Extension (SME) is used to calculate the effects of CPT symmetry breaking on the energy density of nonabelian gauge fields. An additional contribution to the energy density is found, with the time component of the SME coefficient kAF as a multiplying factor. This energy density is then used to find the energy correction to Yang-Mills instantons with CPT violations present. It is found that the Instanton picks up a positive energy contribution, while the anti-instanton picks up a negative energy contribution. This negative energy causes an instability in the free theory. A possible solution is proposed, but not investigated further. The instanton energy correction, as well as the upper bound on kAF in the weak sector, is then used to estimate an upper bound on the sphaleronantisphaleron energy difference caused by CPT violations. A sphaleron-antisphaleron energy difference may have the ability to cause an imbalance in the frequency of the associated sphaleron processes in the early universe, which convert matter to antimatter and vice-versa. This imbalance in frequency could then cause an imbalance in the amount of matter and antimatter in the universe. The extent of the matterantimatter imbalance this would cause is estimated using the sphaleron-antisphaleron energy gap as an effective chemical potential. The upper bound on the imbalance generated is consistent with, and within an order of magnitude of the observed value. To assist with these calculations, the concepts of group theory and field theory are reviewed.

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