Inflationary Gravitational Leptogenesis

TL;DR

This paper explores how gravitational scattering during reheating can produce right-handed neutrinos that generate the universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry, linking inflation, neutrino physics, and baryogenesis.

Contribution

It demonstrates that gravitational scattering during reheating can produce right-handed neutrinos and Higgs bosons, enabling baryogenesis within a consistent inflationary framework.

Findings

Sufficient baryon asymmetry can be generated across various neutrino masses and reheating temperatures.

Gravitational scattering can produce Higgs bosons, aiding in inflationary reheating.

The model links inflation, neutrino physics, and baryogenesis through gravitational processes.

Abstract

We consider the generation of the baryon asymmetry in models with right-handed neutrinos produced through gravitational scattering of the inflaton during reheating. The right-handed neutrinos later decay and generate a lepton asymmetry, which is partially converted to a baryon asymmetry by Standard Model sphaleron processes. We find that a sufficient asymmetry can be generated for a wide range of right-handed neutrino masses and reheating temperatures. We also show that the same type of gravitational scattering produces Standard Model Higgs bosons, which can achieve inflationary reheating consistent with the production of a baryon asymmetry.