ELECTROWEAK STRING CONFIGURATIONS WITH BARYON NUMBER

In the context of electroweak strings, the baryon number anomaly equat ion may be reinterpreted as a conservation law for baryon number minus helicity. Since the helicity is a sum of the link and twist numbers, linked or twisted loops of electroweak string carry baryon number. We evaluate the change in the baryon number obtained by delinking loops o f electroweak Z string and show that twisted electroweak string segmen ts may be regarded as extended sphalerons. We also suggest an alternat ive scenario for electroweak baryogenesis.