Electroweak Strings, Sphalerons and Magnetic Fields

In this talk I would like to discuss three main topics. First, I will connect electroweak strings and the sphaleron in a more elaborate manner than that described in my paper with George Field 1 and discuss the important issue of the stability of electroweak strings. Secondly, I would like to initiate a discussion of the formation of electroweak strings and their evolution by painting a heuristic picture of the phase transition if the phase transition is weakly first order or second order. Inextricably tied to this picture is a possible scenario for baryogenesis and it is hoped that the present discussion will inspire more rigorous work to either confirm or reject the scenario. Finally, I will make a few comments on the generation of magnetic fields at the electroweak phase transition. Kari Enqvist has already described the basic idea of how this scenario works 2 and the purpose of these comments is to clarify some of the issues that have not been addressed in the literature. I will also describe the scenario in an alternate way that makes an interesting connection between electroweak strings and primordial magnetic fields.