No Arabic abstract
Primordial black holes created in the early Universe can constitute a substantial fraction of dark matter and serve as seeds for early galaxy formation. Binary primordial black holes with masses of the order of a few dozen solar masses can explain the observed LIGO/Virgo gravitational-wave events. In this Letter, we show that primordial black holes with log-normal mass spectrum centered at $M_0simeq 15-17 M_odot$ simultaneously explain both the chirp mass distribution of the detected LIGO/Virgo binary black holes and the differential chirp mass distribution of merging binaries as inferred from the LIGO/Virgo observations. The obtained parameters of log-normal mass spectrum of primordial black holes also give the fraction of seeds with $Mgtrsim 10^4 M_odot$ required to explain the observed population of supermassive black holes at $z=6-7$.
Available data on the chirp mass distribution of the coalescing black hole binaries in O1-O3 LIGO/Virgo runs are analyzed and compared statistically with the distribution calculated under the assumption that these black holes are primordial with a log-normal mass spectrum. The theoretically calculated chirp mass distribution with the inferred best acceptable mass spectrum parameters, $M_0=17 M_odot$ and $gamma=0.9$, perfectly describes the data. The value of $M_0$ very well agrees with the theoretically expected one. On the opposite, the chirp mass distribution of black hole binaries originated from massive binary star evolution requires additional model adjustments to reproduce the observed chirp mass distribution
We study formation of stellar mass binary black holes (BBHs) originating from Population III (PopIII) stars, performing stellar evolution simulations for PopIII binaries with MESA. We find that a significant fraction of PopIII binaries form massive BBHs through stable mass transfer between two stars in a binary, without experiencing common envelope phases. We investigate necessary conditions required for PopIII binaries to form BBHs coalescing within the Hubble time with a semi-analytical model calibrated by the stellar evolution simulations. The formation efficiency of coalescing PopIII BBHs is estimated for two different initial conditions for PopIII binaries with large and small separations, respectively. Consequently, in both models, $sim 10%$ of the total PopIII binaries form BBHs only through stable mass transfer and $sim 10%$ of these BBHs merge due to gravitational wave emission within the Hubble time. Furthermore, the chirp mass of merging BBHs has a flat distribution over $15lesssim M_{rm chirp}/M_odot lesssim 35$. This formation pathway of PopIII BBHs is presumably robust because stable mass transfer is less uncertain than common envelope evolution, which is the main formation channel for Population II BBHs. We also test the hypothesis that the BBH mergers detected by LIGO originate from PopIII stars using our result and the total number of PopIII stars formed in the early universe as inferred from the optical depth measured by Planck. We conclude that the PopIII BBH formation scenario can explain the mass-weighted merger rate of the LIGOs O1 events with the maximal PopIII formation efficiency inferred from the Planck measurement, even without BBHs formed by unstable mass transfer or common envelope phases.
Gravitational waves can probe the existence of planetary-mass primordial black holes. Considering a mass range of $[10^{-7}-10^{-2}]M_odot$, inspiraling primordial black holes could emit either continuous gravitational waves, quasi-monochromatic signals that last for many years, or transient continuous waves, signals whose frequency evolution follows a power law and last for $mathcal{O}$(hours-months). We show that primordial black hole binaries in our galaxy may produce detectable gravitational waves for different mass functions and formation mechanisms. In order to detect these inspirals, we adapt methods originally designed to search for gravitational waves from asymmetrically rotating neutron stars. The first method, the Frequency-Hough, exploits the continuous, quasi-monochromatic nature of inspiraling black holes that are sufficiently light and far apart such that their orbital frequencies can be approximated as linear with a small spin-up. The second method, the Generalized Frequency-Hough, drops the assumption of linearity and allows the signal frequency to follow a power-law evolution. We explore the parameter space to which each method is sensitive, derive a theoretical sensitivity estimate, determine optimal search parameters and calculate the computational cost of all-sky and directed searches. We forecast limits on the abundance of primordial black holes within our galaxy, showing that we can constrain the fraction of dark matter that primordial black holes compose, $f_{rm PBH}$, to be $f_{rm PBH}lesssim 1$ for chirp masses between $[4times 10^{-5}-10^{-3}]M_odot$ for current detectors. For the Einstein Telescope, we expect the constraints to improve to $f_{rm PBH}lesssim 10^{-2}$ for chirp masses between [$10^{-4}-10^{-3}]M_odot$.
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are of interest in many cosmological contexts. PBHs lighter than about 1012 kg are predicted to be directly detectable by their Hawking radiation. This radiation should produce both a diffuse extragalactic gamma-ray background from the cosmologically-averaged distribution of PBHs and gamma-ray burst signals from individual light black holes. The Fermi, Milagro, Veritas, HESS and HAWC observatories, in combination with new burst recognition methodologies, offer the greatest sensitivity for the detection of such black holes or placing limits on their existence.
The LIGO and Virgo detectors have recently directly observed gravitational waves from several mergers of pairs of stellar-mass black holes, as well as from one merging pair of neutron stars. These observations raise the hope that compact object mergers could be used as a probe of stellar and binary evolution, and perhaps of stellar dynamics. This colloquium-style article summarizes the existing observations, describes theoretical predictions for formation channels of merging stellar-mass black-hole binaries along with their rates and observable properties, and presents some of the prospects for gravitational-wave astronomy.