  In this letter we show that the inflaton can generate the cosmological baryon
asymmetry. We take the inflaton to be a complex scalar field with a weakly
broken global symmetry and develop a new variant on the Affleck-Dine mechanism.
The inflationary phase is driven by a quadratic potential whose amplitude of
B-modes is in agreement with BICEP2 data. We show that a conserved particle
number is produced in the latter stage of inflation, which can later decay to
baryons. We present promising embeddings in particle physics, including the use
of high dimension operators for decay or using a colored inflaton. We also
point out observational consequences, including a prediction of isocurvature
fluctuations, whose amplitude is just below current limits, and a possible
large scale dipole.
