Generating luminous and dark matter during inflation
We propose a new mechanism for generating both luminous and dark matter during cosmic inflation. According to this mechanism, ordinary and dark matter carry common charge which is associated with an anomalous U(1)[Formula: see text] group. Anomaly terms source [Formula: see text] and U(1)[Formula: see text] charge violating processes during inflation, producing corresponding nonzero Chern–Simons numbers which are subsequently reprocessed into baryon and dark matter densities. The general framework developed is then applied to two possible extensions of the Standard Model with anomalous gauged [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], each with an additional dark matter candidate. In each scenario, we consider the parameter choices that predict the correct dark matter to baryonic matter density ratio and baryon asymmetry. Interestingly, under these conditions, for the U(1)[Formula: see text] extension we obtain a prediction for the mass of the dark matter candidate which is independent of the other choice of parameters, when assuming an [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text].