MS-TP-23-46

Wash-in leptogenesis after the evaporation of primordial black holes

Kai Schmitz1, ∗ and Xun-Jie Xu2, †
1
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany
2
Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
(Dated: November 3, 2023)
Wash-in leptogenesis is a powerful mechanism to generate the baryon asymmetry of the Uni-
verse that treats right-handed-neutrino interactions on the same footing as electroweak sphaleron
processes: as mere spectator processes acting on the background of chemical potentials in the
Standard Model plasma. Successful wash-in leptogenesis requires this chemical background to be
CP -violating, which can be achieved by violating any of the more than ten global charges that are
conserved in the Standard Model at very high temperatures. In this paper, we demonstrate that
arXiv:2311.01089v1 [hep-ph] 2 Nov 2023

the primordial charge asymmetries required for wash-in leptogenesis can be readily produced by
evaporating primordial black holes (PBHs). Our argument is based on the fact that the Hawking
radiation emitted by PBHs contains more or less any state in the particle spectrum. Therefore, if
heavy states with CP -violating decays are present in the ultraviolet, PBH evaporation will unavoid-
ably lead to the production of these states. We illustrate this scenario by means of a simple toy
model where PBH evaporation leads to the production of heavy particles that we call asymmetrons
and whose decay results in a primordial charge asymmetry for right-handed electrons, which in turn
sets the initial conditions for wash-in leptogenesis. We focus on the parameter region where the
decay of the initial thermal asymmetron abundance occurs long before PBH evaporation and only
results in a negligible primordial charge asymmetry. PBH evaporation at later times then serves as
a mechanism to resurrect the asymmetron abundance and ensure the successful generation of the
baryon asymmetry after all. We conclude that PBHs can act as asymmetry-producing machines
that grant access to whatever CP -violating physics may be present in the ultraviolet, rekindling it
at lower energies where it can be reprocessed into a baryon asymmetry by right-handed neutrinos.

I. INTRODUCTION
The Standard Model (SM) fails to provide an explana-
tion for the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe,
usually expressed in terms of the baryon-to-photon ratio,
ηB0
= n0b /n0γ ≃ 6.1 × 10−10 [1, 2], which hence provides
clear evidence for new physics. A popular scenario for
the dynamical generation of the baryon asymmetry in the
early Universe consists of thermal leptogenesis [3], which,
in its simplest form, is based on the charge–parity (CP )
and baryon-minus-lepton number (B −L) violating out-
of-equilibrium decays of heavy right-handed neutrinos
(RHNs). These decays first generate a primordial B −L
asymmetry, which is subsequently partially converted to
a baryon asymmetry by the chemical transport in the SM
plasma, including electroweak sphalerons [4]. Baryogene-
sis via leptogenesis is an attractive scenario that links the
generation of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the
early Universe to new physics in the neutrino sector that
may be within the reach of laboratory experiments [5–7].
Thermal leptogenesis in its standard formulation, how-
ever, comes with several restrictions that render its ex-
perimental exploration very challenging. For instance, in
order to achieve a sufficient amount of CP violation in
RHN decays, the mass of the lightest RHN mass eigen-
∗ kai.schmitz@uni-muenster.de
† xuxj@ihep.ac.cn
state is bounded from below, M1 ≳ 109 GeV [8, 9]. Sim-
ilarly, the Yukawa interactions that couple RHNs to SM
lepton–Higgs pairs must not be too strong, since other-
wise wash-out effects will erase any previously generated
asymmetry and hence spoil the success of leptogenesis.
There are numerous proposals for alternative lepto-
genesis scenarios at lower energies, notably resonant
leptogenesis [10–12] and leptogenesis via RHN oscilla-
tions [13, 14] (see Refs. [15, 16] for recent work on the
relation between these two models). These scenarios par-
tially rely on special choices of parameter values (e.g., a
highly degenerate RHN mass spectrum) and continue to
exploit the CP violation in the RHN sector in order to
generate a B −L asymmetry. By contrast, the recently
proposed mechanism of wash-in leptogenesis [17, 18] fol-
lows a different approach; it dispenses with CP violation
in the RHN sector altogether and separates the energy
scales of CP violation and B −L violation.
Wash-in leptogenesis generalizes thermal leptogenesis
to nontrivial chemical background configurations in the
early Universe and treats RHN interactions on the same
footing as electroweak sphalerons: as mere spectator pro-
cesses that reprocess the chemical potentials of the SM
particle species in the thermal bath. The action of the
electroweak sphalerons on the chemical composition of
the SM plasma then results in the usual violation of
baryon-plus-lepton number B+L, while the action of the
RHN interactions results in the violation of B −L. To-
gether, these two effects are sufficient for the generation
of a primordial baryon asymmetry.

CP violation in the RHN sector is irrelevant for wash-
in leptogenesis. Instead, wash-in leptogenesis is based
on the idea that new CP -violating dynamics at high en-
ergies are responsible for the generation of primordial
charge asymmetries, which are then reshuffled in a B−L-
violating fashion by RHN interactions at low energies. In
this sense, the idea of wash-in leptogenesis denotes a gen-
eral mechanism that can be used as a building block in a
complete model of baryogenesis; but it does not represent
a complete baryogenesis scenario on its own. In other
words, wash-in leptogenesis requires an ultraviolet (UV)
completion that provides an explanation for the origin of
the nontrivial chemical background that the RHN inter-
actions are supposed to act on — a mechanism for charge-
genesis in the language of Refs. [18]. An interesting and
viable scenario for such a UV completion of wash-in lepto-
genesis is axion inflation [18–21], i.e., models of inflation
where inflation is driven by a pseudoscalar axion field
that spontaneously breaks CP invariance by means of
its nonzero and time-dependent background field value.
If the axion field couples to the SM hypercharge gauge
field, the CP violation induced by the dynamics of the
rolling axion field is reflected in the dual production
of (A) maximally helical hypermagnetic fields and (B)
fermionic charge asymmetries in accordance with the chi-
ral anomalies of the SM fermion currents. These charge
asymmetries then provide the necessary initial conditions
for wash-in leptogenesis at lower temperatures.
Wash-in leptogenesis after axion inflation is, however,
only one example scenario among countless other possi-
bilities. In fact, wash-in leptogenesis only requires that
at least one of various global charges that are conserved
in the SM at high temperatures be violated. Depending
on the temperature scale of wash-in leptogenesis, there
are up to eleven suitable charges whose violation can set
the right initial conditions for wash-in leptogenesis,
qe , q2B1 −B2 −B3 , qu−d , qd−s , qB1 −B2 , (1)
qµ , qu−c , qτ , qd−b , qB , qu ,
see Refs. [17, 18] for more details. This characteristic
feature of wash-in leptogenesis renders it an extremely
flexible and general mechanism that can lead to the suc-
cessful generation of the baryon asymmetry in a plethora
of models. The purpose of this paper is to highlight one
such class of models, which has not yet been discussed in
the literature: wash-in leptogenesis after the evaporation
of primordial black holes (PBHs) [22].
The key observation behind this scenario is that the
Hawking radiation emitted by evaporating PBHs con-
tains particles across the whole particle spectrum, in-
cluding heavy states that are potentially never produced
thermally or that already freeze out at very high tempera-
tures. In order to generate the baryon asymmertry of the
Universe, it is then enough to assume that there is at least
one state in the particle spectrum whose interactions re-
sult in a sufficient amount of CP violation, such that it
can generate the right initial conditions for wash-in lepto-
genesis. We shall refer to this particle as the asymmetron.
2
Given a population of very light PBHs in the early Uni-
verse, the evaporation of these PBHs will unavoidably
result in the production of asymmetrons, whose inter-
actions then yield the charge asymmetries required for
wash-in leptogenesis. In our scenario, PBH evaporation
thus plays the role of the chargegenesis mechanism that
serves as the UV completion of wash-in leptogenesis.
Our scenario is related to baryogenesis [23–28] and lep-
togenesis [29–34] models that rely on PBH evaporation
in order to produce an abundance of particles whose de-
cays either violate baryon number B or lepton number
L (i.e., RHNs in the latter case). Meanwhile, our sce-
nario is more general than these earlier proposals. In our
case, we merely need to assume that the CP -violating
asymmetron interactions produce any of the eleven global
charges in Eq. (1), which are conserved in the SM at high
temperatures; we do not need to identify the asymmetron
with, say, a RHN and we do not need to assume that the
asymmetry produced in asymmetron interactions corre-
sponds to B or L right away. Instead, PBHs play the role
of generic asymmetry-producing machines in our scenario
that provide a portal to whatever CP -violating physics
may be present at high energies. PBH evaporation grants
access to these CP -violating dynamics and leads to a
nontrivial chemical equilibrium in one form or another,
which is all it takes to realize wash-in leptogenesis.
In this paper, we will illustrate the basic idea of wash-in
leptogenesis after PBH evaporation by means of a simple
toy model, in which PBH evaporation gives rise to an
abundance of asymmetrons whose decays result in a pri-
mordial asymmetry between right-handed electrons and
left-handed positrons. We expect that this toy model can
be easily generalized to more complex scenarios, involv-
ing other primordial charge asymmetries or even com-
binations thereof. The rest of the paper is organized as
follows: We begin in Sec. II by introducing our toy model.
Then, in Sec. III, we provide a few analytical estimates,
before we study the full system of Boltzmann equations
in Sec. IV. In Sec. V, we perform a systematic scan of
parameter space, before we finally conclude in Sec. VI.
II. A SIMPLE SCENARIO
The idea of wash-in leptogenesis can be illustrated by
considering a particularly simple scenario in the early
universe when the temperature is above O(100) TeV, at
which the electron Yukawa interaction is not equilibrated.
Therefore, any primordial asymmetry of the right-
handed electron (eR ) produced at higher temperatures
can be retained until O(100) TeV. If the wash-out effect
due to for example RHN interactions is strong, the B − L
asymmetry is then mainly determined by wash-in lepto-
genesis, which generates [17]
3
qB−L = − qe , (2)
10
where qe = neR − neR with neR and neR the number

P (f )
densities of eR and eR , and qB−L = f QB−L (nf − nf )
with nf and QfB−L the number density and the B − L
charge of particle f .
Equation (2) implies that if there is a mechanism at
high temperatures giving rise to nonzero qe , there should
be B − L asymmetry at low temperatures. To generate
nonzero qe , we consider PBHs which can emit particles
via Hawking radiation quite generically, independent of
the particle interactions. In particular, they can emit
extremely heavy particles that could otherwise not be
produced in the early universe due to the finite reheating
temperature. For a given PBH of mass mBH , the rate of
emission is
d 2 Ni gi vi
≈ · , (3)
dtdE 2π exp(E/TBH ) ± 1
m2pl
TBH = , (4)
8πmBH
where d2 Ni /dtdE denotes the number of particle i emit-
ted within the differential time dt and the differential
energy dE; gi and vi are the multiplicity and graybody
factor of particle i; and mpl = 1.22 × 1019 GeV is the
Planck mass. The “±” sign takes + or − for fermions
and bosons respectively.
The Hawking radiation of a PBH in general emits par-
ticles and antiparticles equally. To generate the asym-
metry of eR , we introduce a heavy particle X that can
decay asymmetrically to eR and eR . For this reason, we
dub it “the asymmetron”. The asymmetron can be either
a Majorana fermion or a real scalar, as it needs to be
its own antiparticle. We assume that it is a Majorana
fermion with the following interaction:
L ⊃ yXeR S , (5)
where S is a scalar with the opposite SM charges of
eR , i.e., eR and S possess hypercharges YeR = −1 and
YS = +1. As an asymmetron, X needs to decay asym-
metrically. Hence we introduce the parameter of asym-
metric decay:
ΓX→eR S − ΓX→eR S ∗
ϵ≡ , (6)
ΓX→eR S + ΓX→eR S ∗
where Γ denotes the decay width of the process indicated
in the subscript. The asymmetric decay can be attained
by for example assigning a flavor structure to Eq. (5) with
CP phases, similar to the asymmetric decay of right-
handed neutrinos. In general, we expect ϵ ≲ y 2 /(8π) if
all Yukawa couplings in the flavorful generalization are
O(y). Much smaller ϵ is possible by tuning down the CP
phases in the flavor structure.
III. LOW TEMPERATURE, HIGH MASS
— AN ANALYTICAL ESTIMATE
One of the most prominent features of PBHs is that
they can emit heavy particles with masses much higher
3
10−10
strong washout ←−
10−11
nX /nγ or 10−4 qe /nγ
10−12
10−13
PBH mass
10−14
10−15
nX /nγ
qe /nγ
10−16
10−2 10−1 100 101 102 103 104
mX /T
Figure 1. Evolution of the asymmetron number density,
nX , and the electron asymmetry, qe , for the benchmark in
Eqs. (7)-(8). Note that here nX and qe denote only the
contributions of asymmetrons produced from PBHs, while
the thermal asymmetron abundance is also present (the
dashed line), though it leads to negligible asymmetry due to
strong washout. The dotted curve represents the value of
10−14 mBH /mBH0 .
than the environmental temperature. For heavy asym-
metrons produced at a relatively late epoch of the uni-
verse when T ≪ mX , their decay is highly out-of-
equilibrium, which is important for the produced asym-
metry to evade thermal washout. Due to this feature,
within a certain range of the parameter space, the asym-
metry qe would predominantly depend on the yield of X
from PBH evaporation.
This is the scenario we will concentrate on in what
follows. To make the discussion more concrete, let us set
a benchmark:
mBH0 = 10 g , mX = 1012 GeV , (7)
y2
y = 1 , β = 10−6 , ϵ = −0.017 × , (8)
8π
where mBH0 is the initial mass of PBHs, and β ≡
ρBH0 /ρtot with ρBH0 the initial energy density of PBHs
and ρtot the total energy density of the thermal bath.
For simplicity, we assume that all PBHs have the same
mass. The numeric factor for ϵ is set at 0.017 such that
the produced asymmetry meets the observed value, as we
will see later.
Figure 1 shows the evolution of the number density of
X produced from PBHs for this benchmark. The result
is obtained from our numerical calculation in Sec. IV.
Analytically, we can also understand the behavior of the
curve well and provide a quite accurate estimate of the
result.
According to Eq. (4), the initial temperature of the
PBHs in Eq. (7) is TBH0 ≈ 1.06 × 1012 GeV, which is
comparable to mX . Hence they can efficiently emit X
particles. As the PBHs keep evaporating, the PBH tem-
perature and hence the emission rate keeps increasing.

Eventually the PBHs will fully evaporates with the life-
time given by1
m3BH0
τBH = , (9)
3gBH m4pl
where gBH ≈ 7.5 × 10−3 if all SM degrees of freedom
are included. By comparing τBH with the time of the
universe, t ≈ 1/(2H) where H is the Hubble parameter,
we obtain that the PBHs should fully evaporate when
the universe cools down to

10 g
3/2
Teva ≈ 109 GeV × . (10)
mBH0
The formation of PBHs is related to cosmological per-
turbations at the horizon scale (H −1 ), leading to mBH0 ∝
4πH −3 ρtot /3 ∝ T −6 · T 4 ∝ T −2 . Hence smaller PBHs
are formed at higher temperatures. More specifically, the
temperature of the universe at which the PBHs with ini-
tial mass mBH0 are formed is given by [32]
 1/2
10 g
T0 ≈ 1.35 × 1015 GeV × . (11)
mBH0
So the entire PBH life for the given benchmark spans
from T0 ∼ 1015 GeV to Teva ∼ 109 GeV.
Despite that these PBHs keep evaporating during the
period from 1015 to 109 GeV, their masses stay almost
static until the very last moment shortly before Teva —see
the dotted curve in Fig. 1. Consequently, the emission
rate of X is almost a constant at T ≫ Teva . This leads
to the flatness of the blue curve in Fig. 1 for mX /T ∈
[4 × 10−2 , 7 × 102 ].
The flat part of the curve can be estimated by assuming
the balance between the production of X from PBHs and
the depletion due to X decay:
mX
nBH ΓBH→X = nX ΓX , (12)
2TBH
where nBH denotes the number density of PBHs, ΓBH→X
denotes the emission rate of X per PBH, and ΓX =
y 2 mX /(16π) is the decay rate of X at rest. The PBH
number density nBH is determined by rescaling its initial
value, nBH = nBH0 a30 /a3 with nBH0 = βρtot /mBH0 . For
ΓBH→X , we take ΓBH→X ≈ 0.012 TBH —see Appendix A
for details. The mX /(2TBH ) factor accounts for the time
dilution effect of relativistic X decay, since the average
value of mX /E is around 0.46 mX /TBH .
Solving Eq. (12) with respect to nX , we obtain
nX βm4pl T0
≈ 0.28 3 , (13)
nγ mBH0 m2X y 2
where nγ = 2ζ(3)T 3 /π 2 is the photon number density.
For the benchmark values in Eqs. (7)-(8), Eq. (13) gives
1 See Appendix A for a review of the basic aspects of PBH.
4
nX /nγ ≈ 4.7 × 10−14 , agreeing well with the flat part of
the blue curve in Fig. 1.
At high temperatures (mX /T ≲ 30), the number den-
sity nX in Eq. (13) is much lower than its thermal equi-
librium value, neq
X , which is plotted in Fig. 1 as the black
dashed curve. In this regime, any asymmetry produced
via X decay can be very efficiently washed out by ther-
mal processes (eR S ↔ X ↔ eR S ∗ ). Therefore, we regard
the gray region encompassed by the dashed curve as the
strong washout region. Within this region, the asymme-
try qe generated from X decay is strongly suppressed.
Only when nX stretches out of the gray region, the gen-
erated asymmetry can be effectively retained, as can be
seen from the orange curve in Fig. 1.
Therefore, the final contribution of PBH evaporation
to the asymmetry can be estimated by
Z teva
qe ≈ nBH ϵ ΓBH→X dt , (14)
teq
where teq and teva denote the moments when the blue
curve crosses the dashed curve and when the PBHs fully
evaporate, respectively. The result is
qe m2pl T0
≈ 0.0073ϵβ , (15)
nγ eq 2
mBH0 (TBH )
eq
where TBH denotes the PBH temperature at t = teq .
Taking the benchmark values in Eqs. (7)-(8), we obtain
qe /nγ ≈ −1.6×10−7 , agreeing well with the orange curve
in Fig. 1.
To account for the observed baryon asymmetry, ηB ≡
(nB − nB )/s ≈ 8.6 × 10−11 where s ≈ 7.04nγ for the
present universe or 192.2nγ when all SM species are rela-
tivistic, wash-in leptogenesis requires qe /nγ = 192.2ηB ×
(−10/3) × (79/28) = −1.6 × 10−7 . Therefore, the above
benchmark produces exactly the observed baryon asym-
metry.
If the asymmetron mass is well above the initial tem-
perature of the PBHs, mX ≫ TBH0 , then we also need to
take into account that the emission of X becomes sig-
nificant only when the PBH temperature increases to
TBH ≳ O(mX ). In practice, we find that it is a good
eq eq
approximation to replace TBH → max(TBH , mX /3.6) in
Eq. (15) to account for the heavy mass suppression.
Here we would like to compare our calculation to a
similar calculation in Ref. [32], which also analytically
estimated the production of heavy generic particles (X)
from PBHs and the associated asymmetry. In Ref. [32],
the authors assume that all X particles decay only after
the PBHs fully evaporate, while here we assume that the
decay is rapid, causing a balance between the production
and depletion of X. The two different scenarios corre-
spond to small and large y. While we do find that there
is a limited space (see Sec. V) for the former scenario
to generate the required asymmetry predominantly from
PBHs, we mainly focus on the latter as the viable pa-
rameter space is significantly larger. In fact, our Eq. (15)
can be readily applied to the scenario with small y and
 5

long-lived X, because Eq. (14) does not involve any as- In the left panels, we set mBH0 = 1 gram, β = 10−4 ,
sumptions on the evolution of nX . As we have checked, mX = 1013 GeV, y = 1 and ϵ = y 2 /(8π). The K value
Eq. (15) approximately reproduces the analytical result of this example is large, K ≈ 1.4 × 103 ≫ 1. As is
of Ref. [32] in the weak washout regime. shown in the plot, the large coupling y leads to strong
washout within O(0.1) ≲ mX /T ≲ O(10).2 The thermal
production of the asymmetry is washed out rapidly af-
IV. THE BOLTZMANN APPROACH ter X enters equilibrium and before neqX is exponentially
suppressed, while the PBH production of the asymme-
Our analytical approach in Sec. III allows us to under- try can avoid this strong washout if the evaporation lasts
stand the evolution of the PBH-produced asymmetron X sufficiently long.
qualitatively, and to estimate the resulting asymmetry ■ (ii): strong washout with early PBH evaporation.
accurately within certain ranges. Nevertheless, a numer- For comparison, in the middle panels we show another
ical approach based on solving Boltzmann equations is example with mBH0 = 1 gram, β = 10−3 , mX = 1011
desirable for more accurate and comprehensive calcula- GeV, y = 1 and ϵ = y 2 /(8π). Due to the smaller mX , the
tions. PBHs fully evaporate within the strong washout regime.
The Boltzmann equations governing the evolution of Hence the PBH production of the asymmetry is almost
X and the electron asymmetry read entirely washed out.
dY1 ΓX r1 eq ■ (iii): weak washout.
= [Y − Y1 ] , (16) If the coupling is sufficiently weak, X cannot reach
da Ha
dY2 1  3  thermal equilibrium at temperatures relevant for the pro-
= a nBH ΓBH→X − Y2 ΓX r2 , (17) duction of asymmetry. This is in the weak washout
da Ha  regime. In the right panels, we plot an example with
r1 neq

d∆1 ΓX mBH0 = 1 gram, β = 10−4 , mX = 1013 GeV, y = 10−3
= ϵr1 (Y1 − Y eq ) − X
∆ 1 , (18)
da Ha 2 neq
eR and ϵ = y 2 /(8π). The K value of this example is small,
r1 neq K ≈ 3.5 × 10−4 ≪ 1, leading to only weak washout
 
d∆2 ΓX X
= ϵr2 Y2 − ∆ 2 , (19) of the thermal and PBH contributions to the asymme-
da Ha 2 neq
eR
try. As is shown in the lower right panel, the asymmetry
where Y ≡ nX a3 and ∆ ≡ qe a3 with a the scale fac- |qe | produced from PBHs is many orders of magnitude
tor. The subscripts 1 and 2 denoting the thermal and higher than the thermal one. This is a noteworthy dif-
PBH contributions, respectively. The superscript “eq” ference, given that the thermal and PBH productions
indicates equilibrium values. The relativistic factors of nX shown in the upper panel are roughly comparable.
r1,2 ≡ ⟨mX /E⟩1,2 account for the time dilution of rel- The reason for this substantial difference is that the PBH
ativistic X decay. curve for nX deviates more from the equilibrium curve
The last terms in Eqs. (18) and (19) are the so-called than the thermal one.
washout terms. They are proportional to ∆1,2 and im- From the three examples, we can see that the PBH life-
pose exponential suppression on the produced asymme- time is crucial for the asymmetry produced from PBHs
try until the coefficient neq eq to evade strong washout and to dominate over the ther-
X /neR becomes negligibly small.
Equations (16) and (18) can be solved analytically by mal production. Note, however, that their lifetime can-
making a few approximations in the strong and weak not be too long if PBHs are employed in wash-in lep-
washout regimes and combing the results via analytical togenesis, which requires that some SM yukawa interac-
interpolation [35]. The result is tions are not equilibrated. For wash-in leptogenesis via
|qe |, it requires that the PBHs should evaporate before
∆1 3 the electron yukawa interaction reaches equilibrium, i.e.
3
= ϵκf , (20) Teva ≳ 100 TeV, corresponding to mBH0 ≲ 4.6 kg.
nγ a 8

where κf is a complicated function of K ≡ ΓX /H|T →mX .

Its full expression is given in Appendix B. In the weak V. FULL SCAN OF THE PARAMETER SPACE
washout regime (K ≪ 1), κf reduces to 9π 2 K 2 /64.
Equations (20) with the full expression of κf can provide To identify the viable parameter space, we numerically
a rather accurate estimate of the thermal contribution solve the Boltzmann equations for mBH0 ∈ [0.1, 103 ]
to qe —see the black dashed lines in the lower panels of gram, mX ∈ [107 , 1016 ] GeV, and y ∈ [10−3 , 1]. This
Fig. 2. allows us to perform a scan of the parameter space. The
Numerically solving the Boltzmann equations is results are presented in Figs. 3 and 4, where the col-
straightforward. Figure 2 shows the numerical solutions
for three examples representing three different regimes,
as discussed below.
2 The sharp drop at mX /T ≈ 0.4 is caused by qe crossing zero.
■ (i): strong washout with late PBH evaporation.
 6

strong washout+late evaporation strong washout+early evaporation weak washout

−1 −1
10 10
10−1
−3
10 10−3

10−5 10−5 10−3

nX /nγ

nX /nγ

nX /nγ
10−7 10−7

10−5
10−9 10−9

10−11 10−11
TH 10−7
10−13 PBH 10−13
equilibrium
10−15 10−15 10−9

10−3 10−3 10−11

10−13
|qe |/nγ

10−5
|qe |/nγ10−5

|qe |/nγ
10−7 TH 10−7 10−15
PBH
TH+PBH
10−9 TH-ana 10−9 10−17
PBH-ana

10−2 10−1 100 101 102 103 10−2 10−1 100 101 102 10−2 10−1 100 101 102 103
mX /T mX /T mX /T

Figure 2. Numerical solutions of the Boltzmann equations. From left to right panels, we select three three representative
examples to demonstrate i) strong washout with late PBH evaporation; ii) strong washout with early PBH evaporation; iii)
weak washout. The labels “TH” and “PBH” denote thermal and PBH contributions, and “TH+PBH” denotes their sum. The
black dotted and dashed lines in the lower panels are analytical estimates given by Eqs. (15) and (20).

ored/gray regions produce sufficient/insufficient baryon
asymmetry.
The upper bound of mBH0 is set at 103 gram according
to the discussion at the end of Sec. IV. The lower bound
is set at 0.1 gram because the formation of lighter PBHs
would require T0 ≳ 1016 GeV, which would be above the
energy scale of inflation constrained by the Planck 2018
data [36].
The asymmetry produced by PBHs is proportional to β
and ϵ. For β, we set β = 2×10−5 ×(1 g/mBH0 ) so that the
universe is always radiation dominated during PBH evap-
oration. Larger β is possible but the evolution involves
PBH domination—see e.g. [32]. If one further increases β
to values above 1.1 × 10−6 × (104 g/mBH0 )17/24 , it would
lead to an overly large contribution to the cosmological
Neff parameter via gravitational waves [37]. As for ϵ, we
only require that it is below y 2 /(8π). In practice, we set
ϵ at this upper limit and compute the resulting asymme-
try. If it is above the required value, then we consider it
as a viable sample point, since the produced asymmetry
can be readjusted to the desired value by reducing ϵ.
In Fig. 3 we present the parameter space in the the
y-mX plane with mBH0 fixed at 0.1, 1, 10 and 1000
gram. In these plots, there are some red or yellow re-
gions in which the asymmetry is dominantly produced by
PBH. Typically these regions are in the regime of strong
washout with late PBH evaporation, corresponding to
regime (i) discussed in Sec. IV. However, for mBH0 = 0.1
gram, there is a small yellow region around y ∼ 2 × 10−2
and mX ∼ 3 × 1014 GeV. This regime actually corre-
sponds to the weak washout regime. Note that as mBH0
increases, the viable parameter space for weak washout
quickly vanishes, while the viable parameter space in the
strong washout regime remains robust.
In Fig. 4, we fix y at given values and scan over mX
and mBH0 . The left panel in Fig. 4 implies that for
y = 1, late PBH evaporation generally leads to sufficient
production of qe . For example, X emitted from PBHs
with mBH0 = 103 g can have a quite broad mass range,
mX ∈ [107 , 1011 ] GeV, to support sufficient and domi-
nant PBH production of qe . This mass range shrinks as
mBH0 decreases, which is expected since smaller mBH0
implies earlier PBH evaporation. When y is below cer-
tain values, the region favored by the regime of strong
washout with late PBH evaporation vanishes quickly, as
is shown in the right panel in Fig. 4. This is caused by the
suppression of the asymmetric decay parameter ϵ which
is proportional to y 2 .
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Wash-in leptogenesis offers a novel mechanism for gen-
erating the baryon asymmetry of the universe by utiliz-
 7

mBH0 =0.1gram mBH0 =1.0gram

2.0 2.0
100 100

1.5 1.5

1.0 1.0
10−1 10−1
0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0
y

y
−0.5 −0.5
10−2 10−2

−1.0 −1.0

−1.5 −1.5
−3 −3
10 10
−2.0 −2.0
10−2 10−1 100 101 102 103 104 10−2 10−1 100 101 102 103
mX /(1012 GeV) mX /(1012 GeV)

mBH0 =10.0gram mBH0 =1000.0gram

2.0 2.0
100 100

1.5 1.5

1.0 1.0
10−1 10−1
0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0
y

−0.5 −0.5
10−2 10−2

−1.0 −1.0

−1.5 −1.5
−3 −3
10 10
−2.0 −2.0
10−2 10−1 100 101 102 103 10−5 10−3 10−1 101 103
mX /(1012 GeV) mX /(1012 GeV)

Figure 3. The viable parameter space in the y-mX plane. The gray and colored regions lead to insufficient and sufficient
production of the qe asymmetry, respectively. The color bars indicate the value of log10 (∆2 /∆1 ) where ∆1,2 denote the TH
and PBH contributions to the asymmetry.
y=1 y = 0.1
103 2.0 103 2.0

1.5 1.5

102 1.0 102 1.0

0.5 0.5
mBH0 /gram

mBH0 /gram

101 0.0 101 0.0

−0.5 −0.5

100 −1.0 100 −1.0

−1.5 −1.5

10−1 −2.0 10−1 −2.0

10−5 10−3 10−1 101 103 10−5 10−3 10−1 101 103
mX /(1012 GeV) mX /(1012 GeV)

Figure 4. The viable parameter space in the mBH0 -mX plane. The color coding is the same as Fig. 3.
 8

ing possible primordial charge asymmetries not necessar-
ily limited to the commonly considered cases of B, L or
B − L charges. The primordial charge asymmetries re-
quired for wash-in leptogenesis can be readily produced
by evaporating primordial black holes (PBHs).
To demonstrate the viability of this idea, we consider
a rather simple scenario, in which PBHs emit heavy par-
ticles (dubbed as the asymmetrons) that can asymmetri-
cally decay to electrons and thus generate the primordial
electron asymmetry, qe . If the asymmetrons are emitted
by PBHs at a relatively late epoch of the universe, the
generated asymmetry can effectively evade strong wash-
out, as illustrated by Fig. 1 for a specific benchmark.
By solving the Boltzmann equations with both PBH
and thermal contributions taken into account, we find
that there are three very different regimes: (i) strong
washout with late PBH evaporation, (ii) strong washout
with early PBH evaporation, and (iii) weak washout.
For each regime, we demonstrate an example in Fig. 2.
Our results reveal that the PBH lifetime is crucial for
the asymmetry produced from PBHs to evade strong
washout and to dominate over the thermal production.
We further conduct a full scan of the parameter space
(see Figs. 3 and 4) and find that strong washout with late
PBH evaporation is the most favored regime. The former
only requires that the coupling of the asymmetron with
the electron is not suppressed, while the latter requires
relatively large PBH masses, corresponding to longer life-
times. For instance, an O(1) asymmetron coupling com-
bined with an initial mass of 103 g for the PBHs can eas-
ily lead to sufficient primordial asymmetry before wash-in
leptogenesis, if the asymmetron mass is within [107 , 1011 ]
GeV.
In conclusion, our research demonstrated that PBHs in
joint with wash-in leptogenesis can act as a very generic
and efficient “asymmetry-producing machine”, since any
asymmetry injected by PBHs into the SM thermal bath
at a sufficiently early epoch would eventually be re-
processed by wash-in leptogenesis and converted to the
baryon asymmetry. Our novel approach features invul-
nerability to strong washout and the capability to employ
more generic CP violating sources. This opens new av-
enues for exploring the origin of the baryon asymmetry.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the organizers of the
CERN Neutrino Platform Pheno Week in March 2023,
where this project was initiated. The work of K. S.
is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG) through the Research Training Group, GRK
2149: Strong and Weak Interactions — from Hadrons to
Dark Matter. X.-J. X. is supported in part by the Na-
tional Natural Science Foundation of China under grant
No. 12141501 and also supported by CAS Project for
Young Scientists in Basic Research (YSBR-099).

Appendix A: Basic formulae for PBH evaporation

Schwarzschild PBHs radiate particles at the rate given by Eq. (3). The graybody factor vi in Eq. (3) is suppressed
for TBH ≪ mi where mi is the mass of the particle emitted. For TBH ≫ mi , it behaves like blackbody radiation. The
actual dependence of the graybody factor on the energy and the mass can be quite complicated (see e.g. [38–40] for
recent discussions). In this work, we approximate the graybody factor as follows [32]:
27E 2
vi = 2 · Θ,
64π 2 TBH
(A1)

where
(
1 mi /TBH < xcri.
Θ≡ , xcri. ≈ 3.6 . (A2)
0 mi /TBH > xcri.

With the graybody factor in Eq. (A1), we can compute the energy loss rate of a PBH:
dmBH X Z d 2 Ni m4pl
=− EdE = gBH 2 , (A3)
dt i
dtdE mBH

where gBH ≈ 7 × 10−5 g⋆ and g⋆ counts all bosonic (×1) and fermionic (×7/8) degrees of freedom that are lighter
than TBH . The PBHs considered in this work typically have TBH ≫TeV so all SM particles should be included as
massless degrees of freedom. Assuming the dominance of the SM contribution to gBH , we can treat gBH as a constant:
gBH ≈ 7.5 × 10−3 .
For constant gBH , Eq. (A3) has the following analytical solution:
1/3
t − t0

mBH = mBH0 1 − 3gBH m4pl 3 . (A4)
mBH0
 9

where t0 and mBH0 = mBH (t0 ) denote the initial time and mass of the PBH. Eq. (A4) implies that the PBH mass
vanishes at t − t0 = τBH with
m3BH0
τBH = , (A5)
3gBH m4pl

which is the lifetime of the PBH.

The emission rate of X from a PBH, according to Eqs (3) and (A1), is given by
Z 2
d NX 81ζ(3)
ΓBH→X ≡ dE ≈ TBH · Θ ≈ 0.012TBH · Θ . (A6)
dtdE 256π 3
If X decays rapidly after the emission, then the energy spectrum is proportional to Eqs (3).
If X is sufficiently long-lived, then the energy spectrum is computed by
Z 2 Z ∞ 2
dNX d NX d NX 8πm4BH
= dt = 6 dTBH . (A7)
dE dtdE TBH0 dtdE gBH mpl

Assuming the Boltzmann statistics and TBH ≳ mX /xcri. , we obtain

h  2 3
i
x4
dNX 81m 2
pl 1 − e −x
1 + x + x2 + x6 + 24
= 3 , x ≡ E/TBH0 . (A8)
dE 8192π 6 gBH TBH0 x3
2 3 4
Note that 1 + x + x2 + x6 + x24 = ex + O(x5 ) so at small x, Eq. (A8) is proportional to x5 e−x /x3 ≈ x2 e−x . At x ≫ 1,
Eq. (A8) implies

dNX 81m2pl
≈ 3 , (for x ≫ 1) . (A9)
dE 8192π 6 gBH TBH0 x3

Therefore, unlike usual thermal distributions which is suppressed by e−x at large x, Eq. (A8) features a very “hard”
spectrum at high energies.
In Sec. IV, we introduced the r2 factor, which is evaluated as follows:
R mX 3 (
Dm E
X E fd p 0.46 mX for short-lived X
r2 ≡ = R 3 = 1 mXTBH . (A10)
E 2 fd p 3 TBH0 for long-lived X

d2 NX dNX
Here f takes dtdE in Eq. (3) for short-lived X, or dE in Eq. (A8) for long-lived X.

Appendix B: Analytical solutions of the Boltzmann equations

The Boltzmann equations considered in this work can be written into the following form
dY (a)
= X(a) − F (a)Y (a) , (B1)
da
where X(a) and F (a) denote some generic functions of a. It is known that differential equations in the form of
Eq. (B1) has the following solution:
a′
X
Z R a′
Y (a′ ) = G(a′ ) da , G(a′ ) ≡ e− 0 F da . (B2)
0 G

In principle, Eq. (B2) can be used to analytically solve the Boltzmann equations. In practice, one has to take various
approximations when applying it to specific processes. For the thermal production of asymmetry considered in this
work, we can adopt results from a similar calculation in Ref. [35]—see Eqs. (62), (63), (68), and (69) therein. The
result is
qe 3
= ϵκf , (B3)
nγ 8

where the full expression of the κf function is given by
2
1 − e− 3 zB KN
κf (K) ≈ 2
zB K
with
" 5 #
πK 2

1
zB ≈ 1 + log 1 + log
2 1024
9πK
N= , (B6)
16
N
N= p 2 .
1 + 4N/3
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