We calculate the decay rate of a Yukawa fermion in a thermal bath using finite-temperature cutting rules and effective Green’s functions according to the hard thermal loop resummation technique. We apply this result to the decay of a heavy Majorana neutrino in leptogenesis. Compared to the usual approach where thermal masses are inserted into the kinematics of final states, we find that deviations arise through two different leptonic dispersion relations. The decay rate differs from the usual approach by more than 1 order of magnitude in the temperature range which is interesting for the weak washout regime. We discuss how to arrive at consistent finite-temperature treatments of leptogenesis.

• Received 13 April 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.036007