Constraints on the Primordial Black Hole Abundance from the First Advanced LIGO Observation Run Using the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background

Primordial Black Holes from Null Energy Condition Violation during Inflation

Primordial black holes (PBHs) and the violation of the null energy condition (NEC) have significant implications for our understanding of the very early Universe. We present a novel approach to generate PBHs via the NEC violation in a single-field inflationary scenario. In our scenario, the Universe transitions from a first slow-roll inflation stage with a Hubble parameter H=H_{inf1} to a second slow-roll inflation stage with H=H_{inf2}≫H_{inf1}, passing through an intermediate stage of NEC violation. The NEC violation naturally enhances the primordial scalar power spectrum at a certain wavelength, leading to the production of PBHs with masses and abundances of observational interest. We also investigate the phenomenological signatures of scalar-induced gravitational waves resulting from the enhanced density perturbations. Our work highlights the potential of utilizing a combination of PBHs, scalar-induced gravitational waves, and primordial gravitational waves as a valuable probe for studying NEC violation during inflation, opening up new avenues for exploring the early Universe.

Detection of early-universe gravitational-wave signatures and fundamental physics

Detection of a gravitational-wave signal of non-astrophysical origin would be a landmark discovery, potentially providing a significant clue to some of our most basic, big-picture scientific questions about the Universe. In this white paper, we survey the leading early-Universe mechanisms that may produce a detectable signal-including inflation, phase transitions, topological defects, as well as primordial black holes-and highlight the connections to fundamental physics. We review the complementarity with collider searches for new physics, and multimessenger probes of the large-scale structure of the Universe.

From Galactic Bars to the Hubble Tension: Weighing Up the Astrophysical Evidence for Milgromian Gravity

Astronomical observations reveal a major deficiency in our understanding of physics—the detectable mass is insufficient to explain the observed motions in a huge variety of systems given our current understanding of gravity, Einstein’s General theory of Relativity (GR). This missing gravity problem may indicate a breakdown of GR at low accelerations, as postulated by Milgromian dynamics (MOND). We review the MOND theory and its consequences, including in a cosmological context where we advocate a hybrid approach involving light sterile neutrinos to address MOND’s cluster-scale issues. We then test the novel predictions of MOND using evidence from galaxies, galaxy groups, galaxy clusters, and the large-scale structure of the universe. We also consider whether the standard cosmological paradigm (LCDM) can explain the observations and review several previously published highly significant falsifications of it. Our overall assessment considers both the extent to which the data agree with each theory and how much flexibility each has when accommodating the data, with the gold standard being a clear a priori prediction not informed by the data in question. Our conclusion is that MOND is favoured by a wealth of data across a huge range of astrophysical scales, ranging from the kpc scales of galactic bars to the Gpc scale of the local supervoid and the Hubble tension, which is alleviated in MOND through enhanced cosmic variance. We also consider several future tests, mostly at scales much smaller than galaxies.

Detecting Subsolar-Mass Primordial Black Holes in Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals with LISA and Einstein Telescope

Primordial black holes possibly formed in the early Universe could provide a significant fraction of the dark matter and would be unique probes of inflation. A smoking gun for their discovery would be the detection of a subsolar mass compact object. We argue that extreme mass-ratio inspirals will be ideal to search for subsolar-mass black holes not only with LISA but also with third-generation ground-based detectors such as Cosmic Explorer and the Einstein Telescope. These sources can provide unparalleled measurements of the mass of the secondary object at a subpercent level for primordial black holes as light as O(0.01)  M_{⊙} up to luminosity distances around hundred megaparsec and few gigaparsec for LISA and Einstein Telescope, respectively, in a complementary frequency range. This would allow claiming, with very high statistical confidence, the detection of a subsolar-mass black hole, which would also provide a novel (and currently undetectable) family of sources for third-generation detectors.

Search for Sub-Solar Mass Binaries with Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer

A possible detection of sub-solar mass ultra-compact objects would lead to new perspectives on the existence of black holes that are not of astrophysical origin and/or pertain to formation scenarios of exotic ultra-compact objects. Both possibilities open new perspectives for better understanding of our universe. In this work, we investigate the significance of detection of sub-solar mass binaries with components mass in the range: 10-2M⊙ up to 1M⊙, within the expected sensitivity of the ground-based gravitational waves detectors of third generation, viz., the Einstein Telescope (ET) and the Cosmic Explorer (CE). Assuming a minimum of amplitude signal-to-noise ratio for detection, viz., ρ=8, we find that the maximum horizon distances for an ultra-compact binary system with components mass 10-2M⊙ and 1M⊙ are 40 Mpc and 1.89 Gpc, respectively, for ET, and 125 Mpc and 5.8 Gpc, respectively, for CE. Other cases are also presented in the text. We derive the merger rate and discuss consequences on the abundances of primordial black hole (PBH), fPBH. Considering the entire mass range [10-2-1]M⊙, we find fPBH<0.70 (<0.06) for ET (CE), respectively.

Dark Information in Black Hole with λφ Fluid

It has been shown that the nonthermal spectrum of Hawking radiation will lead to information-carrying correlations between emitted particles in the radiation. The mutual information carried by such correlations can not be locally observed and hence is dark. With dark information, the black hole information is conserved. In this paper, we look for the spherically symmetric black hole solution in a λφ fluid model and investigate the radiation spectrum and dark information of the black hole. The spacetime structure of this black hole is similar to that of the Schwarzschild one, while its horizon radius is decreased by the λφ fluid. By using the statistical mechanical method, the nonthermal radiation spectrum is calculated. This radiation spectrum is very different from the Schwarzschild case at its last stage because of the effect of the λφ fluid. The λφ fluid reduces the lifetime of the black hole, but increases the dark information of the Hawking radiation.

Constraints on primordial black holes

We update the constraints on the fraction of the Universe that may have gone into primordial black holes (PBHs) over the mass range 10^-5to 10⁵⁰ g. Those smaller than ∼10¹⁵ g would have evaporated by now due to Hawking radiation, so their abundance at formation is constrained by the effects of evaporated particles on big bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the Galactic and extragalacticγ-ray and cosmic ray backgrounds and the possible generation of stable Planck mass relics. PBHs larger than ∼10¹⁵ g are subject to a variety of constraints associated with gravitational lensing, dynamical effects, influence on large-scale structure, accretion and gravitational waves. We discuss the constraints on both the initial collapse fraction and the current fraction of the dark matter (DM) in PBHs at each mass scale but stress that many of the constraints are associated with observational or theoretical uncertainties. We also consider indirect constraints associated with the amplitude of the primordial density fluctuations, such as second-order tensor perturbations andμ-distortions arising from the effect of acoustic reheating on the CMB, if PBHs are created from the high-σpeaks of nearly Gaussian fluctuations. Finally we discuss how the constraints are modified if the PBHs have an extended mass function, this being relevant if PBHs provide some combination of the DM, the LIGO/Virgo coalescences and the seeds for cosmic structure. Even if PBHs make a small contribution to the DM, they could play an important cosmological role and provide a unique probe of the early Universe.

Scalar Induced Gravitational Waves Review

We provide a review on the state-of-the-art of gravitational waves induced by primordial fluctuations, so-called induced gravitational waves. We present the intuitive physics behind induced gravitational waves and we revisit and unify the general analytical formulation. We then present general formulas in a compact form, ready to be applied. This review places emphasis on the open possibility that the primordial universe experienced a different expansion history than the often assumed radiation dominated cosmology. We hope that anyone interested in the topic will become aware of current advances in the cosmology of induced gravitational waves, as well as becoming familiar with the calculations behind.

A topic review on probing primordial black hole dark matter with scalar induced gravitational waves

Primordial black holes (PBHs) might form from the collapse of over-densed regions generated by large scalar curvature perturbations in the radiation dominated era. Despite decades of various independent observations, the nature of dark matter (DM) remains highly puzzling. Recently, PBH DM have aroused interest since they provide an attracting explanation to the merger events of binary black holes discovered by LIGO/VIRGO and may play an important role on DM. During the formation of PBH, gravitational waves will be sourced by linear scalar perturbations at second-order, known as the scalar induced gravitational waves (SIGWs), which provides a new way to hunt for PBH DM. This topic review mainly focuses on the physics about SIGWs accompanying the formation of PBH DM.

Search for Gravitational Waves from High-Mass-Ratio Compact-Binary Mergers of Stellar Mass and Subsolar Mass Black Holes

We present the first search for gravitational waves from the coalescence of stellar mass and subsolar mass black holes with masses between 20-100  M_{⊙} and 0.01-1  M_{⊙}(10-10^{3}  M_{J}), respectively. The observation of a single subsolar mass black hole would establish the existence of primordial black holes and a possible component of dark matter. We search the ∼164 day of public LIGO data from 2015-2017 when LIGO-Hanford and LIGO-Livingston were simultaneously observing. We find no significant candidate gravitational-wave signals. Using this nondetection, we place a 90% upper limit on the rate of 30-0.01  M_{⊙} and 30-0.1  M_{⊙} mergers at <1.2×10^{6} and <1.6×10^{4}  Gpc^{-3}  yr^{-1}, respectively. If we consider binary formation through direct gravitational-wave braking, this kind of merger would be exceedingly rare if only the lighter black hole were primordial in origin (<10^{-4}  Gpc^{-3}  yr^{-1}). If both black holes are primordial in origin, we constrain the contribution of 1(0.1)M_{⊙} black holes to dark matter to <0.3(3)%.

Exploring Primordial Black Holes from the Multiverse with Optical Telescopes

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are a viable candidate for dark matter if the PBH masses are in the currently unconstrained "sublunar" mass range. We revisit the possibility that PBHs were produced by nucleation of false vacuum bubbles during inflation. We show that this scenario can produce a population of PBHs that simultaneously accounts for all dark matter, explains the candidate event in the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) data, and contains both heavy black holes as observed by LIGO and very heavy seeds of supermassive black holes. We demonstrate with numerical studies that future observations of HSC, as well as other optical surveys, such as LSST, will be able to provide a definitive test for this generic PBH formation mechanism if it is the dominant source of dark matter.

Dark Matters on the Scale of Galaxies

The cold dark-matter model successfully explains both the emergence and evolution of cosmic structures on large scales and, when we include a cosmological constant, the properties of the homogeneous and isotropic Universe. However, the cold dark-matter model faces persistent challenges on the scales of galaxies. Indeed, N-body simulations predict some galaxy properties that are at odds with the observations. These discrepancies are primarily related to the dark-matter distribution in the innermost regions of the halos of galaxies and to the dynamical properties of dwarf galaxies. They may have three different origins: (1) the baryonic physics affecting galaxy formation is still poorly understood and it is thus not properly included in the model; (2) the actual properties of dark matter differs from those of the conventional cold dark matter; (3) the theory of gravity departs from General Relativity. Solving these discrepancies is a rapidly evolving research field. We illustrate some of the solutions proposed within the cold dark-matter model, and solutions when including warm dark matter, self-interacting dark matter, axion-like particles, or fuzzy dark matter. We also illustrate some modifications of the theory of gravity: Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), MOdified Gravity (MOG), and f(R) gravity.

Pulsar Timing Array Constraints on Primordial Black Holes with NANOGrav 11-Year Dataset

The detection of binary black hole coalescences by LIGO and Virgo has aroused the interest in primordial black holes (PBHs), because they could be both the progenitors of these black holes and a compelling candidate of dark matter (DM). PBHs are formed soon after the enhanced scalar perturbations reenter horizon during the radiation dominated era, which would inevitably induce gravitational waves as well. Searching for such scalar induced gravitational waves (SIGWs) provides an elegant way to probe PBHs. We perform the first direct search for the signals of SIGWs accompanying the formation of PBHs in the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational waves (NANOGrav) 11-year dataset. No statistically significant detection has been made, and hence we place a stringent upper limit on the abundance of PBHs at 95% confidence level. In particular, less than one part in a million of the total DM mass could come from PBHs in the mass range of [2×10^{-3},7×10^{-1}]  M_{⊙}.

Primordial Black Holes as a Dark Matter Candidate Are Severely Constrained by the Galactic Center 511 keV γ-Ray Line

We derive the strongest constraint on the fraction of dark matter that can be composed of low mass primordial black holes by using the observation of the Galactic Center 511 keV γ-ray line. Primordial black holes of masses ≲10^{15}  kg will evaporate to produce e^{±} pairs. The positrons will lose energy in the Galactic Center, become nonrelativistic, then annihilate with the ambient electrons. We derive robust and conservative bounds by assuming that the rate of positron injection via primordial black hole evaporation is less than what is required to explain the SPI/INTEGRAL observation of the Galactic Center 511 keV γ-ray line. Depending on the primordial black hole mass function and other astrophysical uncertainties, these constraints are the most stringent in the literature and show that primordial black holes contribute to less than 1% of the dark matter density. Our technique also probes part of the mass range which was completely unconstrained by previous studies.

Gravitational Waves Induced by Non-Gaussian Scalar Perturbations

We study gravitational waves (GWs) induced by non-Gaussian curvature perturbations. We calculate the density parameter per logarithmic frequency interval, Ω_{GW}(k), given that the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation P_{R}(k) has a narrow peak at some small scale k_{*}, with a local-type non-Gaussianity, and constrain the nonlinear parameter f_{NL} with the future LISA sensitivity curve as well as with constraints from the abundance of the primordial black holes (PBHs). We find that the non-Gaussian contribution to Ω_{GW} increases as k^{3}, peaks at k/k_{*}=4/sqrt[3], and has a sharp cutoff at k=4k_{*}. The non-Gaussian part can exceed the Gaussian part if P_{R}(k)f_{NL}^{2}≳1. If both a slope Ω_{GW}(k)∝k^{β} with β∼3 and the multiple-peak structure around a cutoff are observed, it can be recognized as a smoking gun of the primordial non-Gaussianity. We also find that if PBHs with masses of 10^{20} to 10^{22}  g are identified as cold dark matter of the Universe, the corresponding GWs must be detectable by LISA-like detectors, irrespective of the value of P_{R} or f_{NL}.

Search for Subsolar-Mass Ultracompact Binaries in Advanced LIGO's First Observing Run

We present the first Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo search for ultracompact binary systems with component masses between 0.2  M_{⊙}-1.0  M_{⊙} using data taken between September 12, 2015 and January 19, 2016. We find no viable gravitational wave candidates. Our null result constrains the coalescence rate of monochromatic (delta function) distributions of nonspinning (0.2  M_{⊙}, 0.2  M_{⊙}) ultracompact binaries to be less than 1.0×10^{6}  Gpc^{-3}  yr^{-1} and the coalescence rate of a similar distribution of (1.0  M_{⊙}, 1.0  M_{⊙}) ultracompact binaries to be less than 1.9×10^{4}  Gpc^{-3}  yr^{-1} (at 90% confidence). Neither black holes nor neutron stars are expected to form below ∼1  M_{⊙} through conventional stellar evolution, though it has been proposed that similarly low mass black holes could be formed primordially through density fluctuations in the early Universe and contribute to the dark matter density. The interpretation of our constraints in the primordial black hole dark matter paradigm is highly model dependent; however, under a particular primordial black hole binary formation scenario we constrain monochromatic primordial black hole populations of 0.2  M_{⊙} to be less than 33% of the total dark matter density and monochromatic populations of 1.0  M_{⊙} to be less than 5% of the dark matter density. The latter strengthens the presently placed bounds from microlensing surveys of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) provided by the MACHO and EROS Collaborations.