We discuss a possible connection between the recent NANOGrav results and the primordial black holes (PBHs) for the LIGO-Virgo events. In particular, we focus on the axion-like curvaton model, which provides a sizable amount of PBHs and GWs induced by scalar perturbations around the NANOGrav frequency range. The inevitable non-Gaussianity of this model suppresses the induced GWs associated with PBHs for the LIGO-Virgo events to be compatible with the NANOGrav results. We show that the axion-like curvaton model can account for PBHs for the LIGO-Virgo events and the NANOGrav results simultaneously.
We revise primordial black hole (PBH) formation in the axion-like curvaton model and investigate whether PBHs formed in this model can be the origin of the gravtitational wave (GW) signals detected by the Advanced LIGO. In this model, small-scale curvature perturbations with large amplitude are generated, which is essential for PBH formation. On the other hand, large curvature perturbations also become a source of primordial GWs by their second-order effects. Severe constraints are imposed on such GWs by pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments. We also check the consistency of the model with these constraints. In this analysis, it is important to take into account the effect of non-Gaussianity, which is generated easily in the curvaton model. We see that, if there are non-Gaussianities, the fixed amount of PBHs can be produced with a smaller amplitude of the primordial power spectrum.
We show that the NANOGrav signal can come from the Higgs inflation with a noncanonical kinetic term in terms of the scalar induced gravitational waves. The scalar induced gravitational waves generated in our model are also detectable by space based gravitational wave observatories. Primordial black holes with stellar masses that can explain LIGO-Virgo events are also produced. Therefore, the NANOGrav signal and the BHs in LIGO-Virgo events may both originate from the Higgs field.
The LIGO and Virgo Interferometers have so far provided 11 gravitational-wave (GW) observations of black-hole binaries. Similar detections are bound to become very frequent in the near future. With the current and upcoming wealth of data, it is possible to confront specific formation models with observations. We investigate here whether current data are compatible with the hypothesis that LIGO/Virgo black holes are of primordial origin. We compute in detail the mass and spin distributions of primordial black holes (PBHs), their merger rates, the stochastic background of unresolved coalescences, and confront them with current data from the first two observational runs, also including the recently discovered GW190412. We compute the best-fit values for the parameters of the PBH mass distribution at formation that are compatible with current GW data. In all cases, the maximum fraction of PBHs in dark matter is constrained by these observations to be $f_{text{PBH}}approx {rm few}times 10^{-3}$. We discuss the predictions of the PBH scenario that can be directly tested as new data become available. In the most likely formation scenarios where PBHs are born with negligible spin, the fact that at least one of the components of GW190412 is moderately spinning is incompatible with a primordial origin for this event, unless accretion or hierarchical mergers are significant. In the absence of accretion, current non-GW constraints already exclude that LIGO/Virgo events are all of primordial origin, whereas in the presence of accretion the GW bounds on the PBH abundance are the most stringent ones in the relevant mass range. A strong phase of accretion during the cosmic history would favour mass ratios close to unity, and a redshift-dependent correlation between high masses, high spins and nearly-equal mass binaries, with the secondary component spinning faster than the primary.
We investigate a possibility of primordial black hole (PBH) formation with a hierarchical mass spectrum in multiple phases of inflation. As an example, we find that one can simultaneously realize a mass spectrum which has recently attracted a lot of attention: stellar-mass PBHs ($simmathcal{O}(10)M_odot$) as a possible source of binary black holes detected by LIGO/Virgo collaboration, asteroid-mass ($simmathcal{O}(10^{-12})M_odot$) as a main component of dark matter, and earth-mass ($simmathcal{O}(10^{-5})M_odot$) as a source of ultrashort-timescale events in Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment microlensing data. The recent refined de Sitter swampland conjecture may support such a multi-phase inflationary scenario with hierarchical mass PBHs as a transition signal of each inflationary phase.
We analyse the LIGO-Virgo data, including the recently released GWTC-2 dataset, to test a hypothesis that the data contains more than one population of black holes. We perform a maximum likelihood analysis including a population of astrophysical black holes with a truncated power-law mass function whose merger rate follows from star formation rate, and a population of primordial black holes for which we consider log-normal and critical collapse mass functions. We find that primordial black holes alone are strongly disfavoured by the data, while the best fit is obtained for the template combining astrophysical and primordial merger rates. Alternatively, the data may hint towards two different astrophysical black hole populations. We also update the constraints on primordial black hole abundance from LIGO-Virgo observations finding that in the $2-400 M_{odot}$ mass range, they must comprise less than 0.2% of dark matter.