A fuller flavour treatment of N_2-dominated leptogenesis

Abstract

We discuss N_2-dominated leptogenesis in the presence of flavour dependent effects that have hitherto been neglected, in particular the off-diagonal entries of the flavour coupling matrix that connects the total flavour asymmetries, distributed in different particle species, to the lepton and Higgs doublet asymmetries. We derive analytical formulae for the final asymmetry including the flavour coupling at the N_2-decay stage as well as at the stage of washout by the lightest right-handed neutrino N_1. We point out that in general part of the electron and muon asymmetries can completely escape the wash-out at the production and a total B-L asymmetry can be generated by the lightest RH neutrino wash-out yielding so called phantom leptogenesis. Taking of all these new effects into account can enhance the final asymmetry produced by the decays of the next-to-lightest RH neutrinos by orders of magnitude, opening up new interesting possibilities for N_2-dominated thermal eptogenesis. We illustrate these effects for two models which describe realistic neutrino masses and mixing based on sequential dominance.