Abstract
In this letter we show that the inflaton can generate the cosmological baryon
asymmetry. We take the inflaton to be a complex scalar field with a weakly
broken global symmetry and develop a new variant on the Affleck-Dine mechanism.
We show that a conserved particle number can be produced in the latter stage of
inflation, which can later decay to baryons. We present promising embeddings in
particle physics, including the use of high dimension operators or using a
colored inflaton. We also point out observational consequences, including a
prediction of isocurvature fluctuations, whose amplitude is just below current
limits, and a possible large scale dipole.
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