Unified origin of baryons and dark matter

We investigate the possibility that both the baryon asymmetry of the universe and the observed cold dark matter density are generated by decays of a heavy scalar field which dominates the universe before nucleosynthesis. Since baryons and cold dark matter have common origin, this mechanism yields a natural explanation of the similarity of the corresponding energy densities. The cosmological moduli and gravitino problems are avoided. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.