Primordial black hole formation during the QCD phase transition: threshold, mass distribution and abundance
| Title: | Primordial black hole formation during the QCD phase transition: threshold, mass distribution and abundance |
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| Authors: | Musco, Ilia, Jedamzik, Karsten, Young, Sam |
| Source: | Phys.Rev.D 109 (2024) 8, 083506 |
| Publication Year: | 2023 |
| Collection: | Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology |
| Subject Terms: | Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology |
| More Details: | Primordial black hole (PBH) formation during cosmic phase transitions and annihilation periods, such as the QCD transition or the $e^+e^-$-annihilation, is thought to be particularly efficient due to a softening of the equation of state. We present a detailed numerical study of PBH formation during the QCD epoch in order to derive an accurate PBH mass function. We also briefly consider PBH formation during the $e^+e^-$-annihilation epoch. Our investigation confirms that, for nearly scale-invariant spectra, PBH abundances on the QCD scale are enhanced by a factor $\sim 10^3$ compared to a purely radiation dominated Universe. For a power spectrum producing an (almost) scale-invariant PBH mass function outside of the transition, we find a peak mass of $M_{\rm pbh}\approx 1.9 M_{\odot}$ with a fraction $f\approx 1.5\times 10^{-2}$ of the PBHs having a mass of $M_{\rm pbh} > 10 M_{\odot}$, possibly contributing to the LIGO-Virgo black hole merger detections. We point out that the physics of PBH formation during the $e^+e^-$-annihilation epoch is more complex as it is very close to the epoch of neutrino decoupling. We argue that neutrinos free-streaming out of overdense regions may actually hinder PBH formation. Comment: 20 pages, 12 Figures, v2 published version with minor correction |
| Document Type: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevD.109.083506 |
| Access URL: | http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.07980 |
| Accession Number: | edsarx.2303.07980 |
| Database: | arXiv |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevD.109.083506 |
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