Sphalerons in two Higgs doublet theories

We undertake a comprehensive investigation of the properties of the sphaleron in electroweak theories with two Higgs doublets. We do this in as model-independent a way as possible: by exploring the physical parameter space described by the masses and mixing angles of the Higgs particles. If there is a large split in the masses of the neutral Higgs particles, there can be several sphaleron solutions, distinguished by their properties under parity and the behavior of the Higgs field at the origin. In general, these solutions appear in parity conjugate pairs and are not spherically symmetric, although the departure from spherical symmetry is small. Including CP violation in the Higgs potential can change the energy of the sphaleron by up to 14% for a given set of Higgs boson masses, with significant implications for the baryogenesis bound on the mass of the lightest Higgs boson.