Leptogenesis from reheating after inflation and cosmic string decay

Abstract

Cosmic strings form at the end of standard supersymmetric hybrid inflation, and both inflation and strings contribute to the CMB anisotropies. If the symmetry which is broken at the end of inflation is gauged $B$-$L$, there is a mixed scenario for leptogenesis: Right-handed neutrinos can be produced non-thermally during reheating via inflaton decay as well as via cosmic string decay. We show that the parameter space consistent with CMB data can accommodate either or both scenarios depending on the mass of the right-handed neutrinos.