Primordial Black Holes and a Common Origin of Baryons and Dark Matter

The origin of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe (BAU) and the nature of dark matter are two of the most challenging problems in cosmology. We propose a scenario in which the gravitational collapse of large inhomogeneities at the quark-hadron epoch generates both the baryon asymmetry and most of the dark matter in the form of primordial black holes (PBHs). This is due to the sudden drop in radiation pressure during the transition from a quark-gluon plasma to non-relativistic hadrons. The collapse to a PBH is induced by fluctuations of a light spectator scalar field in rare regions and is accompanied by the violent expulsion of surrounding material, which might be regarded as a sort of “primordial supernova". The acceleration of protons to relativistic speeds provides the ingredients for efficient baryogenesis around the collapsing regions and its subsequent propagation to the rest of the Universe. This scenario naturally explains why the observed BAU is of order the PBH collapse fraction and why the baryons and dark matter have comparable densities. The predicted PBH mass distribution ranges from subsolar to several hundred solar masses. This is compatible with current observational constraints and could explain the rate, mass and low spin of the black hole mergers detected by LIGO-Virgo. Future observations will soon be able to test this scenario.

Gravitational waves and dark photon dark matter from axion rotations

An axion rotating in field space can produce dark photons in the early universe via tachyonic instability. This explosive particle production creates a background of stochastic gravitational waves that may be visible at pulsar timing arrays or other gravitational wave detectors. This scenario provides a novel history for dark photon dark matter. The dark photons may be warm at a level detectable in future 21-cm line surveys. For a consistent cosmology, the radial direction of the complex field containing the axion must be thermalized. We explore a concrete thermalization mechanism in detail and also demonstrate how this setup can be responsible for the generation of the observed baryon asymmetry.

Probing baryogenesis with neutron-antineutron oscillations

In the near future, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and the European Spallation Source aim to reach unprecedented sensitivity in the search for neutron-antineutron (n-$$ \overline{n} $$ n ¯ ) oscillations, whose observation would directly imply |∆B| = 2 violation and hence might hint towards a close link to the mechanism behind the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. In this work, we explore the consequences of such a discovery for baryogenesis first within a model-independent effective field theory approach. We then refine our analysis by including a source of CP violation and different hierarchies between the scales of new physics using a simplified model. We analyse the implication for baryogenesis in different scenarios and confront our results with complementary experimental constraints from dinucleon decay, LHC, and meson oscillations. We find that for a small mass hierarchy between the new degrees of freedom, an observable rate for n-$$ \overline{n} $$ n ¯ oscillation would imply that the washout processes are too strong to generate any sizeable baryon asymmetry, even if the CP violation is maximal. On the other hand, for a large hierarchy between the new degrees of freedom, our analysis shows that successful baryogenesis can occur over a large part of the parameter space, opening the window to be probed by current and future colliders and upcoming n-$$ \overline{n} $$ n ¯ oscillation searches.

Influence of the hypermagnetic field noise on the baryon asymmetry generation in the symmetric phase of the early universe

We study a matter turbulence caused by strong random hypermagnetic fields (HMFs) that influence the baryon asymmetry evolution due to the Abelian anomalies in the symmetric phase in the early Universe. Such a matter turbulence is stipulated by the presence of the advection term in the induction equation for which a fluid velocity is dominated by the Lorentz force in the Navier–Stokes equation. For random HMFs, having nonzero mean squared strengths, we calculate the spectra for the HMF energy and the HMF helicity densities. The latter function governs the evolution of the fermion asymmetries in the symmetric phase before the electroweak phase transition (EWPT). In the simplest model based on the first SM generation for the lepton asymmetries of $$e_\mathrm {R,L}$$ e R , L and $$\nu _{e_\mathrm {L}}$$ ν e L , we calculate a decline of all fermion asymmetries including the baryon asymmetry, given by the ‘t Hooft conservation law, when one accounts for a turbulence of HMFs during the universe cooling down to EWPT. We obtain that the stronger the mean squared strength of random initial HMFs is, the deeper the fermion asymmetries decrease, compared to the case in the absence of any turbulence.