A Minimal Supersymmetric Model of Particle Physics and the Early Universe

We consider a minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, with right-handed neutrinos and local $B$$-$$L$, the difference between baryon and lepton number, a symmetry which is spontaneously broken at the scale of grand unification. To a large extent, the parameters of the model are determined by gauge and Yukawa couplings of quarks and leptons. We show that this minimal model can successfully account for the earliest phases of the cosmological evolution: Inflation is driven by the energy density of a false vacuum of unbroken $B$$-$$L$ symmetry, which ends in tachyonic preheating, i.e.\ the decay of the false vacuum, followed by a matter dominated phase with heavy $B$$-$$L$ Higgs bosons. Nonthermal and thermal processes produce an abundance of heavy neutrinos whose decays generate primordial entropy, baryon asymmetry via leptogenesis and dark matter consisting of gravitinos or nonthermal WIMPs. The model predicts relations between neutrino and superparticle masses and a characteristic spectrum of gravitational waves.