Transport equations for chiral fermions to order h and electroweak baryogenesis:: Part I

This is the first in a series of two papers. In this first part, we use the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism to derive semiclassical Boltzmann transport equations, accurate to order h, for massive chiral fermions, scalar particles, and for the corresponding CP-conjugate states. Our considerations include complex mass terms and mixing fermion and scalar fields, such that CP-violation is naturally included, rendering the equations particularly suitable for studies of baryogenesis at a first order clectroweak phase transition. We provide a quantitative criterion which case the reduction to the diagonal kinetic equations in the mass eigenbasis is justified, leading to a quasiparticle picture even in the case of mixing scalar or fermionic particles. Within the approximations we make, it is possible to first study the Boltzmann equations without the collision term. In a second paper [Ann. Phys. xxx (2004) xxx] we discuss the collision terms and reduce the Boltzmann equations to fluid equations. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.