The origin of the matter that composes our Universe is a relevant open question in modern fundamental physics. The widely established theory that accounts for the nature of fundamental particles and their interactions, known as Standard Model, predicts that after the Big Bang the Universe is filled by a thermal plasma containing an equal amount of particles and anti-particles. If that configuration would have existed unchanged until today, as the Universe expands and cools down all particles would eventually annihilate with the corresponding antiparticles, leaving as a result a cold homogeneous Universe filled by low-energetic photons.
This is of course not what we observe today, meaning that at some point in the Universe evolution some asymmetry between the number of particles and anti-particles has been created (it is known as Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe or BAU), which after annihilation results in a net amount of matter that eventually composes what we observe today (galaxies, stars, planets, ourselves, etc.). Since the Standard Model does not provide any viable mechanism for the generation of the BAU, this implies that new (yet undiscovered) physics exists beyond it.
The study of possible solutions to the BAU problem and of their experimental verification represent thus a mean to advance our knowledge on fundamental particles, on their interactions and on the early Universe evolution, in the end deepening our understanding of Nature.
The overall objectives of the action were the theoretical study of the dynamics of leptogenesis (a viable mechanism to account for the BAU) with a focus on realisations that can be tested in current and near future experiments, and the study of the possibility to automate the baryogenesis computation in general scenarios beyond the Standard Model, with the final aim of providing a computer tool for the automated BAU computation.
