Spontaneous Lorentz Violation and Baryogenesis

In the presence of background fields that spontaneously violate Lorentz invariance, a matter-antimatter asymmetry can be generated even in thermal equilibrium. In this paper we systematically investigate models of this type, showing that either high-energy or electroweak versions of baryogenesis are possible, depending on the dynamics of the Lorentz-violating fields. We identify two scenarios of interest: baryogenesis from a weak-scale pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson with intermediate-scale baryon-number violation, and sphaleron-induced baryogenesis driven by a constant-magnitude vector with a late-time phase transition.