Primordial black holes and the asteroid hazard

The probability of a primordial black hole (PBH) entering into the Kuijper asteroid belt in the Solar System is calculated. It is shown that primordial black holes of certain masses can significantly modify asteroid trajectories and orbits. Such events can result in local solar-system catastrophes and global terrestrial catastrophes (e.g., the Tunguska event). The rate of such events is estimated.     

Primordial seeds of supermassive black holes

Supermassive black holes exist in the centers of galaxies, including Milky Way, but there is no compelling theory of their formation. Furthermore, observations of quasars imply that supermassive black holes have already existed at some very high redshifts, suggesting the possibility of their primordial origin. In a class of well-motivated models, inflationary epoch could include two or more periods of inflation dominated by different scalar fields. The transition between such periods of inflation could enhance the spectrum of density perturbations on some specific scale, which could lead to formation of primordial black holes with a very narrow range of masses of the order of 10⁵ solar masses. These primordial black holes could have provided the requisite seeds for the observed population of supermassive black holes.     

Primordial black holes in phantom cosmology

We investigate the effects of accretion of phantom energy onto primordial black holes. Since Hawking radiation and phantom energy accretion contribute to a decrease of the mass of the black hole, the primordial black hole that would be expected to decay now due to the Hawking process would decay earlier due to the inclusion of the phantom energy. Equivalently, to have the primordial black hole decay now it would have to be more massive initially. We find that the effect of the phantom energy is substantial and the black holes decaying now would be much more massive—over ten orders of magnitude! This effect will be relevant for determining the time of production and hence the number of evaporating black holes expected in a universe accelerating due to phantom energy.     

Primordial black holes generated by the non-minimal spectator field

We improve and generalize the non-minimal curvaton model originally proposed in arXiv:2112.12680 to a model in which a spectator field non-minimally couples to an inflaton field and the power spectrum of the perturbation of spectator field at small scales is dramatically enhanced by the sharp feature in the form of non-minimal coupling.At or after the end of inflation,the perturbation of the spectator field is converted into curvature perturbation and leads to the formation of primordial black h...     

Primordial black holes and third order scalar induced gravitational waves

The process of primordial black hole (PBH) formation is inevitably accompanied by scalar induced gravitational waves (SIGWs). The strong correlation between PBH and SIGW signals may offer a promising approach to detecting PBHs in upcoming gravitational wave experiments, such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). We investigate third order SIGWs during a radiation-dominated era in the case of the monochromatic primordial power spectrum \begin{document}$ \mathcal{P}_{\zeta}=A_{\zeta}k_*\delta\left(k-k_*\right) $\end{document}. For LISA observations, the relationships between the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and monochromatic primordial power spectrum are studied systematically, revealing that the effects of third order SIGWs extend the cutoff frequency from \begin{document}$ 2f_* $\end{document} to \begin{document}$ 3f_* $\end{document} and lead to an approximately 200% increase in the SNR for the frequency band from \begin{document}$ 10^{-5} $\end{document}Hz to \begin{document}$ 1.6\times 10^{-3} $\end{document}Hz, corresponding to PBHs with masses in the range \begin{document}$4\times 10^{-12}M_{\odot} \sim 10^{-7}M_{\odot}$\end{document}. We find that there is a critical value, \begin{document}$ A_*=1.76\times 10^{-2} $\end{document}, for the amplitude of the monochromatic primordial power spectra, such that when \begin{document}$ A_{\zeta}>A_* $\end{document}, the energy density of third order SIGWs is larger than that of second order SIGWs.     

Primordial black holes and secondary gravitational waves from chaotic infiation

Chaotic inflation is inconsistent with the observational constraint at 68% CL. Here, we show that the enhancement mechanism with a peak function in the noncanonical kinetic term not only helps the chaotic model V(φ) = V_0φ~(1/3) satisfy the observational constraint at large scales but also enhances the primordial scalar power spectrum by seven orders of magnitude at small scales.The enhanced curvature perturbations can produce primordial black holes of different masses and secondary gravitational waves with different peak frequencies. We also show that the non-Gaussianities of curvature perturbations have little effect on the abundance of primordial black holes and energy density of the scalar-induced secondary gravitational waves.     

Primordial black holes and baryon production in grand unified theories

It is suggested that baryon production through primordial black holes in grand unified theories is not likely to generate an important number of baryons.     

Primordial braneworld black holes: Significant enhancement of lifetimes through accretion

The Randall-Sundrum (RS-II) braneworld cosmological model with a fraction of the total energy density in primordial black holes is considered. Due to their 5d geometry, these black holes undergo modified Hawking evaporation. It is shown that during the high-energy regime, accretion from the surrounding radiation bath is dominant compared to evaporation. This effect increases the mass of the black holes till the onset of matter (or black hole) domination of the total energy density. Thus black holes with even very small initial masses could survive till several cosmologically interesting eras.     

Primordial black hole from the running curvaton

In light of our previous study [Chin. Phys. C 44(8), 085103 (2020)], we investigate the possibility of the formation of a primordial black hole in the second inflationary process induced by the oscillation of the curvaton. By adopting the instability of the Mathieu equation, one can utilize the δ function to fully describe the power spectrum. Owing to the running of the curvaton mass, we can simulate the value of the abundance of primordial black holes covering almost all of the mass ranges. Three special cases are given. One case may account for dark matter because the abundance of a primordial black hole is approximately 75% . As late times, the relic of exponential potential may be approximated to a constant of the order of a cosmological constant, which is dubbed as the role of dark energy. Thus, our model could unify dark energy and dark matter from the perspective of phenomenology. Finally, it sheds new light on exploring Higgs physics.     

Connecting black holes and black strings

Static vacuum spacetimes with one compact dimension include black holes with localized horizons but also uniform and nonuniform black strings where the horizon wraps over the compact dimension. We present new numerical solutions for these localized black holes in 5 and 6 dimensions. Combined with previous 6D nonuniform string results, these provide evidence that the black hole and nonuniform string branches join at a topology changing solution.     

D-branes and fat black holes

The application of D-brane methods to large black holes whose Schwarzschild radius is larger than the compactification scale is problematic. Callan and Maldacena have suggested that despite apparent problems of strong interactions when the number of branes becomes large, the open string degrees of freedom may remain very dilute due to the growth of the horizon area which they claim grows more rapidly than the average number of open strings. Such a picture of a dilute weakly coupled string system conflicts with the picture of a dense string soup that saturates the bound of one string per Planck area. A more careful analysis shows that Callan and Maldacena were not fully consistent in their estimates. In the form that their model was studied it can not be used to extrapolate to large mass without being in conflict with the Hawking-Bekenstein entropy formula. A somewhat modified model can reproduce the correct entropy formula. In this “improved model” the number of string bits on the horizon scales like the entropy in agreement with earlier speculations of Susskind.