A novel mechanism of cosmological baryogenesis through baryon capture by primordial black holes is suggested. In contrast to the conventional scenarios it does not demand non-conservation of baryonic number in particle physics and can proceed in thermal equilibrium. For implementation of this mechanism a heavy superweakly interacting particle a with non-zero baryon number is necessary.
We have refined our previously suggested scenario of generation of the cosmological baryon asymmetry through an asymmetric capture of baryons and antibaryons by primordial block hole arXiv:2009.04361. It is found that in the limit of weak interactions of hypothetical heavy baryons with the primeval plasma the effect can be strongly enhanced and the observed magnitude of the asymmetry can be obtained for a wide range of the model parameters.
We propose a new mechanism for baryogenesis, in which baryon asymmetry is generated by absorption of a new particle $X$ carrying baryon number onto Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). Due to CP violation of $X$ and $overline{X}$ scattering with the plasma surrounding PBHs, the two conjugate particles are differently absorbed by PBHs, leading to the production of an asymmetry in the $X$ sector. The production is halted by PBH evaporation, after which the asymmetry is transferred into the baryonic sector via $X$ decay. We show that this mechanism can produce the correct amount of asymmetry without violating the known constraints on PBHs concentration. Furthermore, we provide a systematic study of the parameter space, identifying the regions leading to the production of the correct baryon asymmetry.
Thermal states in some quantum field theories (QFTs) correspond to black holes in asymptotically AdS spacetime in the AdS/CFT correspondence. We propose a direct procedure to construct holographic images of the black hole in the bulk from a given response function of the QFT on the boundary. The response function with respect to an external source corresponds to the asymptotic data of the bulk field generated by the source on the AdS boundary. According to the wave optics, we can obtain the images from the bulk field propagating in the bulk spacetime. For a thermal state on two-dimensional sphere dual to Schwarzschild-AdS$_4$ black hole, we demonstrate that the holographic images gravitationally lensed by the black hole can be constructed from the response function. In particular, the Einstein rings on the image can be clearly observed and their radius depends on the total energy of the QFT thermal state. These results are consistent with the size of the photon sphere of the black hole calculated in geometrical optics. This implies that, if there exists a dual gravitational picture for a given quantum system, we would be able to probe existence of the dual black hole by the Einstein rings constructed from observables of the quantum system.
Neutron stars can be destroyed by black holes at their center accreting material and eventually swallowing the entire star. Here we note that the accretion model adopted in the literature, based on Bondi accretion or variations thereof, is inadequate for small black holes -- black holes whose Schwarzschild radius is comparable to, or smaller than, the neutrons de Broglie wavelength. In this case, quantum mechanical aspects of the accretion process cannot be neglected, and give rise to a completely different accretion rate. We show that for the case of black holes seeded by the collapse of bosonic dark matter, this is the case for electroweak-scale dark matter particles. In the case of fermionic dark matter, typically the black holes that would form at the center of a neutron star are more massive, unless the dark matter particle mass is very large, larger than about 10$^{10}$ GeV. We calculate the lifetime of neutron stars harboring a small black hole, and find that black holes lighter than $sim 10^{11}$ kg quickly evaporate, leaving no trace. More massive black holes destroy neutron stars via quantum accretion on time-scales much shorter than the age of observed neutron stars.
The gravitational capture of a stellar-mass compact object (CO) by a supermassive black hole is a unique probe of gravity in the strong field regime. Because of the large mass ratio, we call these sources extreme-mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs). In a similar manner, COs can be captured by intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters or dwarf galaxies. The mass ratio in this case is lower, and hence we refer to the system as an intermediate-mass ratio inspiral (IMRI). Also, sub-stellar objects such as a brown dwarf, with masses much lighter than our Sun, can inspiral into supermassive black holes such as Sgr A* at our Galactic centre. In this case, the mass ratio is extremely large and, hence, we call this system ab extremely-large mass ratio inspirals (XMRIs). All of these sources of gravitational waves will provide us with a collection of snapshots of spacetime around a supermassive black hole that will allow us to do a direct mapping of warped spacetime around the supermassive black hole, a live cartography of gravity in this extreme gravity regime. E/I/XMRIs will be detected by the future space-borne observatories like LISA. There has not been any other probe conceived, planned or even thought of ever that can do the science that we can do with these inspirals. We will discuss them from a viewpoint of relativistic astrophysics.