CPT-Symmetric Universe

TL;DR

This paper proposes a CPT-symmetric universe model where the universe before and after the big bang are CPT images, offering new insights into baryon asymmetry and dark matter with testable predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a CPT-symmetric cosmological model that explains dark matter and baryon asymmetry using standard particle physics, with specific predictions for neutrino properties and gravitational waves.

Findings

Dark matter abundance matches a 4.8×10^8 GeV neutrino mass

Neutrinos are Majorana particles allowing neutrinoless double beta decay

No primordial long-wavelength gravitational waves

Abstract

We propose that the state of the universe does {\it not} spontaneously violate CPT. Instead, the universe after the big bang is the CPT image of the universe before it, both classically and quantum mechanically. The pre- and post-bang epochs comprise a universe/anti-universe pair, emerging from nothing directly into a hot, radiation-dominated era. CPT symmetry selects a unique QFT vacuum state on such a spacetime, providing a new interpretation of the cosmological baryon asymmetry, as well as a remarkably economical explanation for the cosmological dark matter. Requiring only the standard three-generation model of particle physics (with right-handed neutrinos), a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry suffices to render one of the right-handed neutrinos stable. We calculate its abundance from first principles: matching the observed dark matter density requires its mass to be $4.8\times10^{8}~{\rm GeV}$. Several other testable predictions follow: (i) the three light neutrinos are Majorana and allow neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay; (ii) the lightest neutrino is massless; and (iii) there are no primordial long-wavelength gravitational waves. We mention connections to the strong CP problem and the arrow of time.