Right-handed neutrinos as the source of density perturbations

Abstract

We study the possibility that cosmological density perturbations are generated by the inhomogeneous decay of right-handed neutrinos. This will occur if a scalar field whose fluctuations are created during inflation is coupled to the neutrino sector. Robust predictions of the model are a detectable level of non-Gaussianity and, if standard leptogenesis is the source of the baryon asymmetry, a baryon isocurvature perturbations at the level of the present experimental constraints.