  A possible solution to the observed baryon asymmetry in the universe is
described, based on the physics of the standard model of electroweak
interactions. At temperatures high enough electroweak physics provides
violation of baryon number, while C and CP symmetries are not exactly
conserved, although in the context of the minimal electroweak model with one
Higgs doublet the rate of CP violation is not sufficient enough to generate the
observed asymmetry. The condition that the universe must be out of thermal
equilibrium requires the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) to be first order.
The dynamics of the phase transition in the minimal model is investigated
through the effective potential, which is calculated at the one loop order.
Finite temperature effects on the effective potential are treated numerically
and within the high temperature approximation, which is found to be in good
agreement with the exact calculation. At the one loop level the phase
transition was found to be of the first order, while the strength of the
transition depends on the unknown parameters of the theory which are the Higgs
boson and top quark masses.
