APPROXIMATE COMPUTATION OF THE SMALL-FLUCTUATION DETERMINANT AROUND A SPHALERON

We compute, in the high-temperature limit, the determinant of small fluctuations around the sphaleron configuration of electroweak theory using the approximate method of Diakonov, Petrov, and Yung. For the ratio g2 of scalar four-point coupling to gauge coupling g2 near unity, we find that the determinant is of order 1 in agreement with previous computations. For g2 large corresponding to a strongly coupled Higgs phase, or for g2 very small tending to the Coleman-Weinberg limit, we find that the determinant strongly suppresses the rate of baryon-number-changing processes. © 1990 The American Physical Society.