Consequences of triplet seesaw for leptogenesis

We present the various leptogenesis scenarios which may occur if, in addition to the ordinary heavy right-handed neutrinos, there exists a heavy scalar SU(2)(L) triplet coupled to leprous. We show that the contributions of the right-handed neutrinos and the triplet to the lepton asymmetry are proportional to their respective contributions to the neutrino mass matrix. A consequence of the triplet contribution to the lepton asymmetry is that there is no more upper bound on the neutrino masses from leptogenesis due to the fact that the neutrino mass constraints do not necessarily induce asymmetry washout effects. We also show how such a triplet leptogenesis mechanism may emerge naturally in the framework of the left-right symmetric theories, such as Pati-Salam or SO(10). (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.