(Standard model) universe dominated by the right matter

Abstract

We analyze the phenomenology of a prolonged early epoch of matter domination by an unstable but very long-lived massive particle. This new matter domination era can help to relax some of the requirements on the primordial inflation. Its main effect is the huge entropy production produced by the decays of such a particle that can dilute any possible unwanted relic, as the gravitino in supersymmetric models, and thus relax the constraints on the inflationary reheating temperature. A natural candidate for such a heavy, long-lived particle already present in the standard model of the electroweak interactions would be a heavy right-handed neutrino. In this case, we show that its decays can also generate the observed baryon asymmetry with right-handed neutrino masses well above the bound from gravitino overproduction.