SPHALERON PRODUCTION IN HIGH-ENERGY 2 PARTICLE COLLISIONS

I estimate the amplitude for producing a classical vector (W) field configuration with non-zero Chern-Simons number in a high energy qqBAR collision. The calculation is performed within a Minkowski framework, with use made of amplitudes derived for multigluon processes in unbroken gauge theories. The degree of suppression (or non-suppression) of the process depends on the detailed structure of the field configuration. Thus, although it is difficult to assess whether the amplitude is sizeable in the 10 TeV region, there seems to be no a priori reason why electroweak baryon number violation (which, in a Minkowski space formulation, requires the generation of the field configurations considered here) should be suppressed in high energy collisions.