Some issues in flat direction baryogenesis

Motivated by recent developments, we explore some issues in Affleck-Dine baryogenesis. We consider in greater detail the role of thermal effects in the production of baryon number. We find that these effects are important even for rather flat potentials, and obtain somewhat different estimates of the baryon asymmetry than those in the literature. We also consider the decay of the condensate, and possible implications of these observations for the formation of Q-balls. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.