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Register a new userThe Black Hole Window on Cosmic Inflation
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Authors
Samuel Passaglia
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We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universes primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large that they form black holes in sufficient abundance to be the dark matter. We start with the simplest single-field slow-roll paradigm for inflation, which cannot produce primordial black hole dark matter, and then gradually relieve its assumptions. After developing the effective field theory of inflation, we highlight the importance of the single-clock condition in controlling the inhomogeneities. Going beyond single-clock inflation takes us first to a qualitatively different inflationary scenario known as ultra-slow roll and finally to understanding the physics of the Higgs field during inflation.
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The primordial black hole (PBH) comprising full dark matter (DM) abundance is currently allowed if its mass lies between $10^{-16}M_{odot} lesssim M lesssim 10^{-11} M_{odot}$. This lightest mass range is hard to be probed by ongoing gravitational lensing observations. In this paper, we advocate that an old idea of the lensing parallax of Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), observed simultaneously by spatially separated detectors, can probe the unconstrained mass range; and that of nearby stars can probe a heavier mass range. In addition to various good properties of GRBs, astrophysical separations achievable around us --- $r_oplus text{--}$ AU --- is just large enough to resolve the GRB lensing by lightest PBH DM.
The large enhancement of the primordial power spectrum of the curvature perturbation can seed the formation of primordial black hole, that can play as a dark matter component in the Universe. In multi-filed inflation models, the curved trajectory of the scalar fields in the field space can generate a peak in the power spectrum on small scales due to the existence of the isocurvature perturbation. Here we show that a potential can be reconstructed from a given power spectrum, which is made of a scale-invariant one on large scales and the other function with a peak on small scales. In multi-field inflation models the reconstructed potential may not be unique and we can find different potentials from a given power spectrum.
We study the parameter space of the effective (with two scalars) models of cosmological inflation and primordial black hole (PBH) formation in the modified $(R+R^2)$ supergravity. Our models describe double inflation, whose first stage is driven by Starobinskys scalaron coming from the $R^2$ gravity, and whose second stage is driven by another scalar belonging to the supergravity multiplet. The ultra-slow-roll regime between the two stages leads a large peak (enhancement) in the power spectrum of scalar perturbations, which results in efficient PBH formation. Both inflation and PBH formation are generic in our models, while those PBH can account for a significant part or the whole of dark matter. Some of the earlier proposed models in the same class are in tension (over $3sigma$) with the observed value of the scalar tilt $n_s$, so that we study more general models with more parameters, and investigate the dependence of the cosmological tilts $(n_s,r)$ and the scalar power spectrum enhancement upon the parameters. The PBH masses and their density fraction (as part of dark matter) are also calculated. A good agreement (between $2sigma$ and $3sigma$) with the observed value of $n_s$ requires fine tuning of the parameters, and it is only realized in the so-called $delta$-models. Our models offer the (super)gravitational origin of inflation, PBH and dark matter together, and may be confirmed or falsified by future precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation and PBH-induced gravitational waves.
Recent BICEP2 detection of low-multipole B-mode polarization anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation supports the inflationary universe scenario and suggests a large inflaton field range. The latter feature can be achieved with axion fields in the framework of string theory. We present such a helical model which naturally becomes a model with a single cosine potential, and which in turn reduces to the (quadratic) chaotic inflation model in the super-Planckian limit. The slightly smaller tensor/scalar ratio $r$ of models of this type provides a signature of the periodic nature of an axion potential. We present a simple way to quantify this distinctive feature. As axions are intimately related to strings/vortices and strings are ubiquitous in string theory, we explore the possibility that cosmic strings may be contributing to the B-mode polarization anisotropy observed.
Primordial black holes (PBHs) in the mass range $(30$--$100)~M_{odot}$ are interesting candidates for dark matter, as they sit in a narrow window between microlensing and cosmic microwave background constraints. There are however tight constraints from the binary merger rate observed by the LIGO and Virgo experiments. In deriving these constraints, PBHs were treated as point Schwarzschild masses, while the more careful analysis in an expanding universe we present here, leads to a time-dependent mass. This implies a stricter set of conditions for a black hole binary to form and means that black holes coalesce much more quickly than was previously calculated, namely well before the LIGO/Virgos observed mergers. The observed binaries are those coalescing within galactic halos, with a merger rate consistent with data. This reopens the possibility for dark matter in the form of LIGO-mass PBHs.
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