A Proposed Mechanism for Charge Acquisition: Why the Matter–Antimatter Asymmetry Was Inevitable

Abstract This paper proposes an amendment to the Standard Big Bang model, confined to the epoch from particle production to hadronisation, beginning from a single postulate: electric charge is not innate but acquired through interaction with a new field, the Charge Field (CF). Before electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), particles existed as base particles — carrying spin but neither mass nor charge. Like the Higgs field, the CF acquired a non-zero vacuum expectation value at EWSB, and charge was conferred through each particle’s own coupling constant. From this single postulate, the matter–antimatter asymmetry follows without any primordial imbalance. Before charge was acquired, matter and antimatter were not distinguishable, since the distinction arises solely from charge. At EWSB the entire pre-existing pool became matter; only afterwards did pair production yield equal quantities of both, exactly as observed. Further consequences follow: the composite nature of the d-quark, quark clustering in threes, beta decay as disassembly, every W boson born of a composite quark and every hadronic W decay producing one, a physical origin for charge conservation and quantisation, and an architecture permitting exactly three base species and no others. The CF’s coupling structure fixes the production ratio of quarks to electrons at three to two and with it the proton-to-electron ratio that permits neutral hydrogen. No parameter is fitted. What emerges is not an isolated amendment but an entire framework in which each result compels the next. The framework reproduces established Standard Model results. It addresses only the first generation of fermions; heavier generations are treated in Paper 3, and the CF Lagrangian in Paper 2.