Inflation and Leptogenesis in Five Dimensional SO(10)

Abstract

We discuss five dimensional (5D) supersymmetric SO(10) compactified on the orbifold $S^1/(Z_2\times Z_2')$ such that the SO(10) gauge symmetry is broken on the fixed point(s) to its maximal subgroup(s). The MSSM gauge symmetry is recovered by the usual Higgs mechanism, and inflation is associated with the Higgs mechanism, implemented through F-term scalar potentials on the two fixed points. The spontaneous breaking scale is fixed from $\delta T/T$ measurements to be around $10^{16}$ GeV, and the scalar spectral index $n=0.98-0.99$. The inflaton field decays into right-handed neutrinos whose subsequent out of equilibrium decay yield the observed baryon asymmetry via leptogenesis.