Production Of Primordial Black Holes Research Articles

Pulsar timing arrays and primordial black holes from a supercooled phase transition

An explicit realistic model featuring a supercooled phase transition, which allows us to explain the background of gravitational waves recently detected by pulsar timing arrays, is constructed. In this model the phase transition corresponds to radiative symmetry breaking (and mass generation) in a dark sector featuring a dark photon associated with the broken symmetry. The completion of the transition is ensured by a non-minimal coupling between gravity and the order parameter and fast reheating occurs thanks to a preheating phase. Finally, it is also shown that the model leads to primordial black hole production.

Spectral distortions from promising single and multifield inflationary models

Forthcoming missions probing the absolute intensity of the CMB are expected to be able to measurespectral distortions, which are deviations from its blackbody distribution. As cosmic inflation can induce spectraldistortions, these experiments offer a possibility to further test the various promising inflationaryproposals, whose predictions need to be carefully determined. After numerically fitting all inflationaryobservables to match current observations, we compute the predicted spectral distortions ofvarious promising single and multifield inflationary models. The predictions of single-fieldinflationary models display deviations between 0.5% and 20% with respect to the standard cosmologicalmodel in the observable window, where multi-natural and axion-monodromy inflation stand out in this respect.In the case of multifield inflation, we observe a richer structure of the power spectrum, which, inthe case of so-called hybrid attractors, yields spectral distortions about 100 times more intense thanthe standard signal. These observations open up questions about the relation among our resultsand other cosmological observables that are also to be probed soon, such as the production ofprimordial black holes and gravitational waves.

Numerical 1-loop correction from a potential yielding ultra-slow-roll dynamics

Single-field models of inflation might lead to amplified scalar fluctuations on small scales due, for example, to a transient ultra-slow-roll phase. It was argued by Kristiano & Yokoyama in ref. [1] that the enhanced amplitude of the scalar power spectrum on small scales has the potential to induce a sizeable 1-loop correction to the spectrum at large scales. In this work, we repeat the calculation for the 1-loop correction presented in ref. [1]. We closely follow their assumptions but evaluate the loop numerically. This allows us to consider both instantaneous and smooth transitions between the slow-roll and ultra-slow-roll phases. In particular, we generate models featuring realistic, smooth evolution from an analytic inflationary potential. We find that, upon fixing the amplitude of the peak in the power spectrum at short scales, the resulting 1-loop correction is not significantly reduced by considering a smooth evolution. In particular, for a power spectrum with a tree-level peak amplitude potentially relevant for small-scale phenomenology, e.g. primordial black hole production, the 1-loop correction on large scales is a few percent of the tree-level power spectrum.

The D3-D¯3\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D}3 $$\\end{document}-brane inflation model revisited

Combining previous results, the D3-D¯3\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D}3 $$\\end{document}-brane pair potential U(T, ϕ) is presented here, where the inflaton ϕ measures the separation between the D3-brane and the anti-D3-brane, and the complex scalar mode T becomes tachyonic when the annihilation of the branes happens as they collide. Besides the distinct form of the inflationary potential, this hybrid inflationary model differs from a typical hybrid model in 2 important aspects: (1) U(T, ϕ) becomes complex when T becomes tachyonic, where Im U(T, ϕ) plays an important role in the dynamics towards the end of the inflationary epoch; (2) tunnelling during the inflationary epoch can happen; this is particularly relevant if there are multiple D3-D¯3\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\overline{D}3 $$\\end{document}-brane pairs in different warped throats. Besides the production of cosmic superstrings, the model offers the possibility of first order phase transition that may generate large enough density perturbation for the primordial black hole production. Stochastic gravitational wave background from these sources remain to be fully investigated.

Cancellation of quantum corrections on the soft curvature perturbations

We study the cancellation of quantum corrections on the superhorizon curvature perturbations from subhorizon physics beyond the single-clock inflation from the viewpoint of the cosmological soft theorem. As an example, we focus on the transient ultra-slow-roll inflation scenario and compute the one-loop quantum corrections to the power spectrum of curvature perturbations taking into account nontrivial surface terms in the action. We find that Maldacena’s consistency relation is satisfied and guarantees the cancellation of contributions from the short-scale modes. As a corollary, primordial black hole production in single-field inflation scenarios is not excluded by perturbativity breakdown even for the sharp transition case in contrast to some recent claims in the literature. We also comment on the relation between the tadpole diagram in the in-in formalism and the shift of the elapsed time in the stochastic-δN formalism. We find our argument is not directly generalisable to the tensor perturbations.

Primordial black holes from a curvaton scenario with strongly non-Gaussian perturbations

We investigate the production of primordial black holes (PBHs) in a mixed inflaton-curvaton scenario with a quadratic curvaton potential, assuming the curvaton is in de Sitter equilibrium during inflation with 〈χ〉 = 0. In this setup, the curvature perturbation sourced by the curvaton is strongly non-Gaussian, containing no leading Gaussian term. We show that for m 2/H 2 ≳ 0.3, the curvaton contribution to the spectrum of primordial perturbations on CMB scales can be kept negligible but on small scales the curvaton can source PBHs. In particular, PBHs in the asteroid mass range 10-16 M ⊙ ≲ M ≲ 10-10 M ⊙ with an abundance reaching F PBH = 1 can be produced when the inflationary Hubble scale H ≳ 1012 GeV and the curvaton decay occurs in the window from slightly before the electroweak transition to around the QCD transition.

Strong Backreaction Regime in Axion Inflation.

We study the nonlinear dynamics of axion inflation, capturing for the first time the inhomogeneity and full dynamical range during strong backreaction, till the end of inflation. Accounting for inhomogeneous effects leads to a number of new relevant results, compared to spatially homogeneous studies: (i)the number of extra efoldings beyond slow-roll inflation increases very rapidly with the coupling, (ii)oscillations of the inflaton velocity are attenuated, (iii)the tachyonic gauge field helicity spectrum is smoothed out (i.e., the spectral oscillatory features disappear), broadened, and shifted to smaller scales, and (iv)the nontachyonic helicity is excited, reducing the chiral asymmetry, now scale dependent. Our results are expected to impact strongly on the phenomenology and observability of axion inflation, including gravitational wave generation and primordial black hole production.

Formation of trapped vacuum bubbles during inflation, and consequences for PBH scenarios

A class of inflationary scenarios for primordial black hole (PBH) formation include a small barrier in the slope of the potential. There, the inflaton slows down, generating an enhancement of primordial perturbations. Moreover, the background solution overcomes the barrier at a very low speed, and large backward quantum fluctuations can prevent certain regions from overshooting the barrier. This leads to localized bubbles where the field remains “trapped” behind the barrier. In such models, therefore, we have two distinct channels for PBH production: the standard adiabatic density perturbation channel and the bubble channel. Here, we perform numerical simulations of bubble formation, addressing the issues of initial conditions, critical amplitude and bubble expansion. Further, we explore the scaling behaviour of the co-moving size of bubbles with the initial amplitude of the field fluctuation. We find that for small to moderate non-Gaussianity f NL ≲ 2.6, the threshold for the formation of vacuum bubbles agrees with previous analytical estimates [1] to 5% accuracy or so. We also show that the mass distribution for the two channels is different, leading to a slightly broader range of PBH masses when both contributions are comparable. The bubble channel is subdominant for small f NL, and becomes dominant for f NL ≳ 2.6. We find that the mass of PBHs in the bubble channel is determined by an adiabatic overdensity surrounding the bubble at the end of inflation. Remarkably, the profile of this overdensity turns out to be of type-II. This represents a first clear example showing that overdensities of type-II can be dominant in comparison with the standard type-I. We also comment on exponential tails and on the fact that in models with local type non-Gaussianity (such as the one considered here), the occurrence of alternative channels can easily be inferred from unitarity considerations.

Extra-tensor-induced origin for the PTA signal: No primordial black hole production

Recently, pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations announced evidence for an isotropic stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background. The origin of the PTA signal can be astrophysical or cosmological. In the latter case, the so-called secondary scalar-induced GW scenario is one of the viable explanations, but it has a potentially serious issue of the overproduction of primordial black holes (PBHs) due to the enhanced curvature perturbation. In this letter, we present a new interpretation of the PTA signal. Namely, it is originated from an extra spectator tensor field that exists on top of the metric tensor perturbation. As the energy density of the extra tensor field is always subdominant, it cannot lead to the formation of PBHs. Thus our primordial-tensor-induced scenario is free from the PBH overproduction issue.

Multi-field inflation with large scalar fluctuations: non-Gaussianity and perturbativity

Recently multi-field inflation models that can produce large scalar fluctuations on small scales have drawn a lot of attention, primarily because they could lead to primordial black hole production and generation of large second-order gravitational waves. In this work, we focus on models where the scalar fields responsible for inflation live on a hyperbolic field space. In this case, geometrical destabilisation and non-geodesic motion are responsible for the peak in the scalar power spectrum. We present new results for scalar non-Gaussianity and discuss its dependence on the model's parameters. On scales around the peak, we typically find that the non-Gaussianity is large and close to local in form. We validate our results by employing two different numerical techniques, utilising the transport approach, based on full cosmological perturbation theory, and the δN formalism, based on the separate universe approximation. We discuss implications of our results for the perturbativity of the underlying theory, focusing in particular on versions of these models with potentially relevant phenomenology at interferometer scales.

Squeezed bispectrum and one-loop corrections in transient constant-roll inflation

In canonical single-field inflation, the production of primordial black holes (PBH) requires a transient violation of the slow-roll condition. The transient ultra slow-roll inflation is an example of such scenarios, and more generally, one can consider the transient constant-roll inflation. We investigate the squeezed bispectrum in the transient constant-roll inflation and find that Maldacena's consistency relation holds for a sufficiently long-wavelength mode, whereas it is violated for modes around the peak scale for the non-attractor case. We also demonstrate how the one-loop corrections are modified compared to the case of the transient ultra slow-roll inflation, focusing on representative one-loop terms originating from a time derivative of the second slow-roll parameter in the cubic action. We find that the perturbativity requirement on those terms does not rule out the production of PBH from the transient constant-roll inflation.Therefore, it is a simple counterexample of the recently claimed no-go theorem of PBH production from single-field inflation.

Primordial black hole production in natural and hilltop inflation

We consider the possibility of primordial black hole, PBH, formation sourced by a rise in the power spectrum. The power spectrum becomes large at late times due to decay of the inflaton into vectors through a ϕFF̃ coupling. Two background inflaton models which are well supported by current Planck data are considered, natural inflation and hilltop inflation. Many of the papers considering formation of PBHs have considered a peaked power spectrum where Pζ gets small again at late times. This avoids overproducing miniature PBHs which would evaporate and could violate BBN and CMB bounds. This paper examines the other way of avoiding these bounds, producing PBHs from perturbations formed closer to the end of inflation such that the PBHs are too small to violate these bounds. This has the advantage of allowing for simpler models in that no additional feature is needed to be added to evade constraints. Although these black holes would have evaporated, they can be close to without exceeding current BBN bounds, making it possible the signature will be revealed in the future. We calculate how the various model parameters affect the mass and number of PBHs produced. Any evidence for PBHs sourced from an inflationary power spectrum would provide evidence for inflation on a drastically different energy scale from the CMB, and thus would be highly valuable in answering what occurred during inflation.

Production of Primordial Black Holes in Improved E-Models of Inflation

E-type α-attractor models of single-field inflation were generalized further in order to accommodate production of primordial black holes (PBHs) via adding a near-inflection point to the inflaton scalar potential at smaller scales, in good agreement with measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. A minimal number of new parameters were used but their fine-tuning was maximized in order to increase the possible masses of PBHs formed during an ultra-slow-roll phase, leading to a large enhancement in the power spectrum of scalar (curvature) perturbations by 6 or 7 orders of magnitude against the power spectrum of perturbations observed in CMB. It was found that extreme fine-tuning of the parameters in our models can lead to the formation of moon-sized PBHs, with masses of up to 1026 g, still in agreement with CMB observations. Quantum corrections are known to lead to the perturbative upper bound on the amplitude of large scalar perturbations responsible for PBH production. The quantum (one-loop) corrections in our models were found to be suppressed by one order of magnitude for PBHs with masses of approximately 1019 g, which may form the whole dark matter in the Universe.

Anomalies, the Dark Universe and Matter-Antimatter asymmetry

I review a (3+1)-dimensional, string-inspired cosmological model with gravitational anomalies (of Chern-Simons (CS) type) at early epochs, and a totally-antisymmetric torsion, dual to a massless axion-like field (“gravitational axion”), which couples to the CS term. Under appropriate conditions, primordial gravitational waves can condense, leading to a condensate of the CS anomaly term. As a consequence, one obtains inflation in this theory, of running-vacuum-model (RVM) type, without the need for external inflatons. At the end of the inflationary era, chiral fermionic matter is generated, whose gravitational anomalies cancel the primordial ones. On the other hand, chiral anomalies of gauge type, which are also generated by the chiral matter, remain present during the post-inflationary epochs and become responsible for the generation of a non-perturbative mass for the torsion-related gravitational axion, which, in this way, might play the rôle of a Dark Matter component of geometrical origin. Moreover, in this model, stringy non-perturbative effects during the RVM inflationary phase generate periodic structures for the potential of axion-like particles that arise due to compactification, and co-exist with the gravitational axions. Such periodic potential modulations may lead to an enhanced production of primordial black holes during inflation, which in turn affects the profile of the generated gravitational waves during the radiation era, with potentially observable consequences. This model also entails an unconventional mechanism for Leptogenesis, due to Lorentz-violating backgrounds of the gravitational axions that are generated during inflation, as a consequence of the anomaly condensates, and remain undiluted in the radiation era.

Signatures of a High Temperature QCD Transition in the Early Universe.

Beyond-Standard-Model extensions of QCD could result in quark and gluon confinement occurring well above at temperature around the GeV scale. These models can also alter the order of the QCD phase transition. Therefore, the enhanced production of primordial black holes (PBHs) that can accompany the change in relativistic degrees of freedom at the QCD transition could favor the production of PBHs with mass scales smaller than the Standard Model QCD horizon scale. Consequently, and unlike PBHs associated with a standard GeV-scale QCD transition, such PBHs can account for all the dark matter abundance in the unconstrained asteroid-mass window. This links beyond-Standard-Model modifications of QCD physics over a broad range of unexplored temperature regimes (around 10-10^{3} TeV) with microlensing surveys searching for PBHs. Additionally, we discuss implications of these models for gravitational wave experiments. We show that a first-order QCD phase transition at around 7TeV is consistent with the Subaru Hyper-Suprime Cam candidate event, while a transition of around 70GeV is consistent with OGLE candidate events and could also account for the claimed NANOGrav gravitational wave signal.

PeV-scale leptogenesis, gravitational waves, and black holes from a SUSY-breaking phase transition

Supersymmetry is a highly motivated theoretical framework, whose scale of breaking may be at PeV energies, to explain null searches at the Large Hadron Collider. SUSY breaking through a first order phase transition may have occurred in the early universe, leading to potential gravitational wave signals. Constructing a realistic model for gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, we show that such a transition can also induce masses for heavy right-handed neutrinos and sneutrinos, whose CP-violating decays give leptogenesis at the PeV scale, and a novel mechanism of neutrino mass generation at one loop. For the same models we predict the possible gravity wave signals, and we study the possibility of production of primordial black holes during the phase transition.

Large deviations in the early Universe

Fluctuations play a critical role in cosmology. They are relevant across a range of phenomena from the dynamics of inflation to the formation of structure. In many cases, these fluctuations are coarse grained and follow a Gaussian distribution as a consequence of the Central Limit Theorem. Yet, some classes of observables are dominated by rare fluctuations and are sensitive to the details of the underlying microphysics. In this paper, we argue that the Large Deviation Principle can be used to diagnose when one must to appeal to the fundamental description. Concretely, we investigate the regime of validity for the Fokker-Planck equation that governs Stochastic Inflation. For typical fluctuations, this framework leads to the central limit-type behavior expected of a random walk. However, fluctuations in the regime of the Large Deviation Principle are determined by instanton-like saddle points accompanied by a new energy scale. When this energy scale is above the UV cutoff of the EFT, the tail is only calculable in the microscopic description. We explicitly demonstrate this phenomenon in the context of determining the phase transition to eternal inflation, the distribution of scalar field fluctuations in de Sitter, and the production of primordial black holes.

Hybrid α-attractors, primordial black holes and gravitational wave backgrounds

We investigate the two-stage inflation regime in the theory of hybrid cosmological α-attractors. The spectrum of inflationary perturbations is compatible with the latest Planck/BICEP/Keck Array results, thanks to the attractor properties of the model. However, at smaller scales, it may have a very high peak of controllable width and position, leading to a copious production of primordial black holes (PBH) and generation of a stochastic background of gravitational waves (SGWB).

Questions on calculation of primordial power spectrum with large spikes: the resonance model case

Inflationary models predicting a scale-dependent large amplification of the density perturbations have recently attracted a lot of attention because the amplified perturbations can seed a sizable amount of primordial black holes (PBHs) and stochastic background of gravitational waves (GWs). While the power spectra in these models are computed based on the linear equation of motion, it is not obvious whether loop corrections are negligible when such a large amplification occurs during inflation. In this paper, as a first step to discuss the loop corrections in such models, we use the in-in formalism and calculate the one-loop scalar power spectrum numerically and analytically in an illustrative model where the density perturbations are resonantly amplified due to oscillatory features in the inflaton potential. Our calculation is technically new in that the amplified perturbations are numerically taken into account in the in-in formalism for the first time. In arriving at our analytical estimates, we highlight the role that the Wronskian condition of perturbations, automatically satisfied in our model, plays in obtaining the correct estimates. In addition, the analytical estimates show that the contribution originating from the quantum nature of the perturbations in the loop can be dominant. We also discuss the necessary conditions for subdominant loop corrections in this model. We find that, for the typical parameter space leading to the \U0001d4aa(107) amplification of the power spectrum required for a sufficient PBH production, the one-loop power spectrum dominates over the tree-level one, indicating the breakdown of the perturbation theory.

Fitting Power Spectrum of Scalar Perturbations for Primordial Black Hole Production during Inflation

A simple phenomenological fit for the power spectrum of scalar (curvature) perturbations during inflation is proposed to analytically describe slow roll of inflaton and formation of primordial black holes (PBH) in the early universe, in the framework of single-field models. The fit is given by a sum of the power spectrum of slow-roll inflation, needed for a viable description of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in agreement with Planck/BICEP/Keck measurements, and the log-normal (Gaussian) fit for the power spectrum enhancement (peak) needed for efficient PBH production, in the leading (model-independent) approximation. The T-type α-attractor models are used to get the simple CMB power spectrum depending upon the e-folds as the running variable. The location and height of the peak are chosen to yield the PBH masses in the asteroid-size window allowed for the whole (current) dark matter. We find the restrictions on the peak width.