Axion baryogenesis puts a new spin on the Hubble tension

Abstract

We show that a rotating axion field that makes a transition from a matter-like equation of state to a kination-like equation of state around the epoch of recombination can significantly ameliorate the Hubble tension, i.e., the discrepancy between the determinations of the present-day expansion rate $H_0$ from observations of the cosmic microwave background on one hand and Type Ia supernovae on the other. We consider a specific, UV-complete model of such a rotating axion and find that it can relax the Hubble tension without exacerbating tensions in determinations of other cosmological parameters, in particular the amplitude of matter fluctuations $S_8$. We subsequently demonstrate how this rotating axion model can also generate the baryon asymmetry of our universe, by introducing a coupling of the axion field to right-handed neutrinos. This baryogenesis model predicts heavy neutral leptons that are most naturally within reach of future lepton colliders, but in finely-tuned regions of parameter space may also be accessible at the high-luminosity LHC and the beam dump experiment SHiP.