Helical magnetic fields from Riemann coupling lead to baryogenesis

Abstract: The spectrum of energy density fluctuations, baryon asymmetry, and coherent large-scale magnetic fields are the three observables that provide crucial information on physics at very high energies. Inflation can only provide a mechanism to explain the density perturbations, and the origin of primordial magnetic fields and baryon asymmetry require physics beyond the standard models of cosmology and particle physics. In this work, we show that the mechanism that leads to primordial helical fields also leads to baryogenesis at the beginning of the radiation-dominated epoch. The model we consider here consists of mass dimension 6 operators that include Riemann coupling between gravity and electromagnetic field without extending the Standard Model of particle physics. We explicitly show that the generation of primordial helical magnetic fields leads to baryogenesis. We further show that the model predicts the observed amount of baryon asymmetry of the Universe for a range of reheating temperatures consistent with the observations.