Sphalerons

Why is it interesting?

Sphalerons are an important part of several proposed solutions of the Baryon asymmetry problem such as Leptogenesis.

Layman

Explanations in this section should contain no formulas, but instead colloquial things like you would hear them during a coffee break or at a cocktail party.

Student

A sphaleron is a maximum of the energy functional in the direction of changing winding number, and a minimum in the orthogonal direction. Thus it is a saddle point. (page 336 in An introduction to gauge theories and modern particle physics by E. Leader and E. Predazzi.)

Researcher

The motto in this section is: the higher the level of abstraction, the better.

Examples

Example1
Example2:

FAQ

History