Primordial space-time foam as an origin of cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry

Abstract

The possibility is raised that the observed cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry may reside in asymmetric space-time fluctuations and their interplay with the Stc̈kelberg-Feynman interpretation of antimatter. The presented thesis also suggests that the effect of space-time fluctuations is to diminish the fine structure constant in the past. Recent studies of the QSO absorption lines provide a 4.1 standard deviation support for this prediction. Our considerations suggest that in the presence of space-time fluctuations, the principle of local gauge invariance, and the related notion of parallel transport, must undergo fundamental changes.

Comments: This is an extended version of an essay selected for an ``honorable mention'' in the Annual Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 2001. To appear in the December 2001 Special Issue of Int. J. Mod. Phys. D