We perform (3+1)-dimensional simulations of primordial black hole (PBH) formation starting from the spheroidal super-horizon perturbations. We investigate how the ellipticity (prolateness or oblateness) affects the threshold of PBH formation in terms of the peak amplitude of curvature perturbation. We find that, in the case of the radiation-dominated universe, the effect of ellipticity on the threshold is negligibly small for the large amplitude of perturbations expected for PBH formation.
We construct spacetimes which provide spherical and nonspherical models of black hole formation in the flat Friedmann--Lemaitre--Robertson--Walker (FLRW) universe with the Lemaitre--Tolman--Bondi solution and the Szekeres quasispherical solution, respectively. These dust solutions may contain both shell-crossing and shell-focusing naked singularities. These singularities can be physically regarded as the breakdown of dust description, where strong pressure gradient force plays a role. We adopt the simultaneous big bang condition to extract a growing mode of adiabatic perturbation in the flat F…
We study the nonspherical linear perturbations of the discretely self-similar and spherically symmetric solution for a self-gravitating scalar field discovered by Choptuik in the context of marginal gravitational collapse. We find that all nonspherical perturbations decay. Therefore critical phenomena at the threshold of gravitational collapse, originally found in spherical symmetry, will extend to (at least slightly) nonspherical initial data.
Choptuik has demonstrated that naked singularities can arise in gravitational collapse from smooth, asymptotically flat initial data, and that such data have codimension one in spherical symmetry. Here we show, for perfect fluid matter with equation of state $p=ρ/3$, by perturbing around spherical symmetry, that such data have in fact codimension one in the full phase space, at least in a neighborhood of spherically symmetric data.
Continuously self-similar (CSS) solutions for the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric perfect fluid, with the equation of state p=kappa rho, with 0<kappa<1 a constant, are constructed numerically and their linear perturbations, both spherical and nonspherical, are investigated. The l=1 axial perturbations admit an analytical treatment. All others are studied numerically. For intermediate equations of state, with 1/9<kappa<0.49, the CSS solution has one spherical growing mode, but no nonspherical growing modes. That suggests that it is a critical solution even in (slightly) nonsph…
Nonspherical stellar collapse to a black hole is one of the most promising gravitational wave sources for gravitational wave detectors. We numerically study gravitational waves from a slightly nonspherical stellar collapse to a black hole in linearized Einstein theory. We adopt a spherically collapsing star as the zeroth-order solution and gravitational waves are computed using perturbation theory on the spherical background. In this paper we focus on the perturbation of odd-parity modes. Using the polytropic equations of state with polytropic indices $n_p=1$ and 3, we qualitatively study grav…
Gravitational wave emission from nonspherical collapse in an early matter-dominated era using N-body simulations
Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics（亚太理论物理中心）；Pohang University of Science and Technology（浦项科技大学）；Nagoya University（名古屋大学）；Rikkyo University（立教大学）；University of Tokyo（东京大学）
We present numerical evidence for the existence of several types of static black hole solutions with a nonspherical event horizon topology in $d\geq 6$ spacetime dimensions. These asymptotically flat configurations are found for a specific metric ansatz and can be viewed as higher dimensional counterparts of the $d=5$ static black rings, dirings and black Saturn. Similar to that case, they are supported against collapse by conical singularities. The issue of rotating generalizations of these solutions is also considered.
We reinvestigate gravitational ellipsoidal collapse with special focus on its impact on primordial black-hole formation. For a generic model we demonstrate that the abundance and energy density of the produced primordial black holes will be significantly decreased when the non-sphericity of the overdensities is taken into account.
Primordial black holes through preheating instabilities in $α$-attractor models
Universidade da Beira Interior（贝拉内陆大学）；Centro de Matemática e Aplicações da Universidade da Beira Interior（贝拉内陆大学数学与应用中心）；Jagiellonian University（雅盖隆大学）；University of Utah（犹他大学）；Institute of Science Tokyo（东京科学大学）；University of Portsmouth（朴茨茅斯大学）
Certain inflationary models as well as realisations of phase transitions in the early Universe predict the formation of primordial black holes. For most mass ranges, the fraction of matter in the form of primordial black holes is limited by many different observations on various scales. Primordial black holes are assumed to be formed when overdensities that cross the horizon have Schwarzschild radii larger than the horizon. Traditionally it was therefore assumed that primordial black-hole masses were equal to the horizon mass at their time of formation. However, detailed calculations of their …
We investigate primordial black hole formation in the matter-dominated phase of the Universe, where nonspherical effects in gravitational collapse play a crucial role. This is in contrast to the black hole formation in a radiation-dominated era. We apply the Zel'dovich approximation, Thorne's hoop conjecture, and Doroshkevich's probability distribution and subsequently derive the production probability $β_{0}$ of primordial black holes. The numerical result obtained is applicable even if the density fluctuation $σ$ at horizon entry is of the order of unity. For $σ\ll 1$, we find a semi-analyti…
"The self-induced collapse hypothesis" was introduced by D. Sudarsky and collaborators to explain the origin of cosmic structure from a perfect isotropic and homogeneous universe during the inflationary regime. In this paper, we calculate the power spectrum for the tensor modes, within the semiclassical gravity approximation, with the additional hypothesis of a generic self-induced collapse of the inflaton's wave function; we also compute an estimate for the tensor-to-scalar ratio. Based on this calculation, we show that the considered proposal exhibits a strong suppression of the tensor modes…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) are a useful tool in cosmology to probe primordial inhomogeneities on small scales that reenter the Hubble radius during the radiation dominated epoch. In this paper, a phenomenon we call the double formation of PBHs, described below, is explored. Suppose there exists a highly perturbed region which will collapse to form a PBH after the horizon crossing of this region, and farther that this region is superposed on much larger region, which also collapses upon reentry. One then expects the collapse of the central smaller region at the time of the crossing of this r…
Primordial black holes (PBHs), as a potential macroscopic candidate for dark matter, can encounter other compact objects in dark matter halos because of their random distribution. Besides, the detection of gravitational waves (GWs) related to the stellar-mass black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) mergers raises the possibility that the BHs involved in such events may have a primordial origin. In this work, we calculate the merger rate of PBH-NS binaries within the framework of ellipsoidal-collapse dark matter halo models and compare it with the corresponding results derived from spherical-collapse d…
Primordial Black Holes in a Radiation-Dominated Universe
Bowdoin College（鲍登学院）；Queen Mary University of London（伦敦大学玛丽女王学院）；University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学）；Kenyon College（肯扬学院）；Case Western Reserve University（凯斯西储大学）；The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学）
The Reheating process at the end of inflation is often modeled by an oscillating scalar field which shows a background dust-like behaviour, prompting the analysis of gravitational collapse and black hole formation in this era to be approached by the spherical collapse of standard structure formation. In the scalar field dark matter structure formation process virialized halos halt the direct collapse, resulting in halos with condensed central cores at the de Broglie scale of the dominant scalar field. We show that a similar process can take place during reheating, leading to the formation of p…
Numerical results from a study of boson stars under nonspherical perturbations using a fully general relativistic 3D code are presented together with the analysis of emitted gravitational radiation. We have constructed a simulation code suitable for the study of scalar fields in space-times of general symmetry by bringing together components for addressing the initial value problem, the full evolution system and the detection and analysis of gravitational waves. Within a series of numerical simulations, we explicitly extract the Zerilli and Newman-Penrose scalar $Ψ_4$ gravitational waveforms w…
We have studied the merger rate of primordial black holes (PBHs) in the ellipsoidal-collapse model of halo to explain the dark matter abundance by the PBH merger estimated from the gravitational waves detections via the Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) detectors. We have indicated that the PBH merger rate within each halo for the ellipsoidal models is more significant than for the spherical models. We have specified that the PBH merger rate per unit time and per unit volume for the ellipsoidal-collapse halo models is about one order of magnitude higher than the corresponding spherical models. Moreover, w…
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) that form from the collapse of density perturbations are more clustered than the underlying density field. In a previous paper, we showed the constraints that this has on the prospects of PBH dark matter. In this paper we examine another consequence of this clustering: the formation of bound systems of PBHs in the early universe. These would hypothetically be the earliest gravitationally collapsed structures, forming when the universe is still radiation dominated. Depending upon the size and occupation of the clusters, PBH merging occurs before they would have oth…
We estimate the spin distribution of primordial black holes based on the recent study of the critical phenomena in the gravitational collapse of a rotating radiation fluid. We find that primordial black holes are mostly slowly rotating.
The statistical properties of the primordial density perturbations has been considered in the past decade as a powerful probe of the physical processes taking place in the early universe. Within the inflationary paradigm, the properties of the bispectrum are one of the keys that serves to discriminate among competing scenarios concerning the details of the origin of cosmological perturbations. However, all of the scenarios, based on the conventional approach to the so-called "quantum-to-classical transition" during inflation, lack the ability to point out the precise physical mechanism respons…
We examine the shape of the primordial black hole mass distribution arising from a peak in the primordial power spectrum. In light of improvements to the modelling, we revisit the claim that the effects of critical collapse produce a distribution that is not described by the commonly assumed lognormal, showing that this conclusion remains valid, particularly for narrow peaks where the shape of the mass distribution is insensitive to the peak properties and critical collapse determines a minimum width. We propose some alternative models that may better describe the shape, both for the narrow pe…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) are of fundamental interest in cosmology and astrophysics, and have received much attention as a dark matter candidate and as a potential source of gravitational waves. One possible PBH formation mechanism is the gravitational collapse of cosmic strings. Thus far, the entirety of the literature on PBH production from cosmic strings has focused on the collapse of (quasi)circular cosmic string loops, which make up only a tiny fraction of the cosmic loop population. We demonstrate here a novel PBH formation mechanism: the collapse of a small segment of cosmic string …
We consider the role of secondary infall and accretion onto an initially overdense perturbation in matter-dominated eras, like the one which is likely to follow the end of inflation. We show that primordial black holes may form through post-collapse accretion, namely the accretion onto an initial overdensity whose collapse has not given rise to a primordial black hole. Accretion may be also responsible for the growth of the primordial black hole masses by orders of magnitude till the end of the matter-dominated era.
The mass function of primordial black holes created through the near-critical gravitational collapse is calculated in a manner fairly independent of the statistical distribution of underlying density fluctuation, assuming that it has a sharp peak on a specific scale. Comparing it with various cosmological constraints on their mass spectrum, some newly excluded range is found in the volume fraction of the region collapsing into black holes as a function of the horizon mass.
Relic gravitational waves from primordial gravitational collapses
Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；Tsung-Dao Lee Institute and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交大汤川研究所和物理与天文学院）；Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；Stellenbosch University（斯泰伦博斯大学）；Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics（亚太理论物理中心）
We show that primordial black holes can be produced from the collapse of large isocurvature perturbations of the cold dark matter. We develop a novel procedure to compute the resulting black hole abundance by studying matched perturbations of matter-only universes, and we use our procedure to translate observational constraints on black hole abundances into model-independent constraints on cold dark matter isocurvature perturbations over a wide range of scales. The constraint on the typical amplitude of the primordial perturbations weakens slightly slower than linearly on small scales.
The existence (and abundance) of primordial black holes (PBHs) is governed by the power spectrum of primordial perturbations generated during inflation. So far no PBHs have been observed, and instead, increasingly stringent bounds on their existence at different scales have been obtained. Up until recently, this has been exploited in attempts to constrain parts of the inflationary power spectrum that are unconstrained by cosmological observations. We first point out that the simple translation of the PBH non-observation bounds into constraints on the primordial power spectrum is inaccurate as …
The recent discovery of critical phenomena arising in gravitational collapse near the threshold of black hole formation is used to estimate the initial mass function of primordial black holes (PBHs). It is argued that the universal scaling relation between black hole mass and initial perturbation found for a variety of collapsing space-times also applies to PBH formation, indicating the possibility of the formation of PBHs with masses much smaller than one horizon mass. Owing to the natural fine-tuning of initial conditions by the exponential decline of the probability distribution for primord…
Evidences for the primordial black holes (PBH) presence in the early Universe renew permanently. New limits on their mass spectrum challenge existing models of PBH formation. One of the known model is based on the closed walls collapse after the inflationary epoch. Its intrinsic feature is multiple production of small mass PBH which might contradict observations in the nearest future. We show that the mechanism of walls collapse can be applied to produce substantially different PBH mass spectra if one takes into account the classical motion of scalar fields together with their quantum fluctuat…
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are, typically light, black holes which can form in the early Universe. There are a number of formation mechanisms, including the collapse of large density perturbations, cosmic string loops and bubble collisions. The number of PBHs formed is tightly constrained by the consequences of their evaporation and their lensing and dynamical effects. Therefore PBHs are a powerful probe of the physics of the early Universe, in particular models of inflation. They are also a potential cold dark matter candidate.
Using the concept of apparent horizon for dynamical black holes, we revisit the formation of primordial black holes (PBH) in the early universe for both linear and non-linear regimes. First, we develop the perturbation theory for spherically symmetric spacetimes to study the formation of spherical PBHs in linear regime and we fix two gauges. We also introduce a well defined gauge invariant quantity for the expansion. Using this quantity, we argue that PBHs do not form in the linear regime. Finally, we study the non-linear regime. We adopt the spherical collapse picture by taking a closed FRW m…
Primordial black holes, which could have been formed in the very early Universe due to the collapse of large curvature fluctuations, are nowadays one of the most attractive and fascinating research areas in cosmology for their possible theoretical and observational implications. This review article presents the current results and developments on the conditions for primordial black hole formation from the collapse of curvature fluctuations in spherical symmetry on a Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker background and its numerical simulation. We review the appropriate formalism for the condition…
The radiation emitted by horizonless exotic compact objects (ECOs), such as wormholes, 2-2-holes, fuzzballs, gravastars, boson stars, collapsed polymers, superspinars etc., is expected to be strongly suppressed when compared to the radiation of black holes. If large primordial curvature fluctuations collapse into such objects instead of black holes, they do not evaporate or evaporate much slower than black holes and could thus constitute all of the dark matter with masses below $M < 10^{-16}M_\odot.$ We reevaluate the relevant experimental constraints for light ECOs in this mass range and show…
The mass distribution of dark matter halos is a sensitive probe of primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). We derive an analytical formula of the halo mass function by perturbatively computing excursion set path-integrals for a non-Gaussian density field with non-vanishing skewness, fnl. We assume a stochastic barrier model which captures the main features of the ellipsoidal collapse of halos. Contrary to previous results based on extensions of the Press-Schechter formalism to NG initial conditions, we find that the non-spherical collapse of halos directly alter the signature of primordial NG. This p…
Following on after three previous papers discussing the formation of primordial black holes during the radiative era of the early universe, we present here a further investigation of the critical nature of the process involved, aimed at making contact with some of the basic underlying ideas from the literature on critical collapse. We focus on the intermediate state, which we have found appearing in cases with perturbations close to the critical limit, and examine the connection between this and the similarity solutions which play a fundamental role in the standard picture of critical collapse…
Within the framework that primordial black holes are formed by the direct gravitational collapse of large primordial density perturbations in the radiation dominated stage, we derive the threshold of the density contrast for the formation of rotating primordial black holes based on the simple Jeans criterion. It is found that the threshold value increases in proportion to the square of the angular momentum. We then apply the recently refined analysis on the formation threshold for non-rotating black holes to the case of rotating black holes, and contrast the derived threshold with the former. …
The inflationary paradigm enjoys a very wide acceptance in the cosmological community, due in large part to the fact that it is said to "naturally account" for a nearly scale independent power primordial spectrum of fluctuations which is in very good agreement with the observations. The expected overall scale of the fluctuations in most models, turns out to be too large, because it is inversely proportional to the slow roll parameter, which is expected to be very small. This fact requires the fine tuning of the inflaton potential. In series of recent works it has been argued that the success o…
We present a modification of the Press-Schechter (PS) formalism to derive general mass functions for primordial black holes (PBHs), considering their formation as being associated to the amplitude of linear energy density fluctuations. To accommodate a wide range of physical relations between the linear and non-linear conditions for collapse, we introduce an additional parameter to the PS mechanism, and that the collapse occurs at either a given cosmic time, or as fluctuations enter the horizon. We study the case where fluctuations obey Gaussian statistics and follow a primordial power spectru…
In this work, we consider the problem of the emergence of seeds of cosmic structure in the framework of the non-inflationary model proposed by Hollands and Wald. In particular, we consider a modification to that proposal designed to account for breaking the symmetries of the initial quantum state, leading to the generation of the primordial inhomogeneities. This new ingredient is described in terms of a spontaneous reduction of the wave function. We investigate under which conditions one can recover an essentially scale free spectrum of primordial inhomogeneities, and which are the dominant de…
We argue that primordial black-hole formation must be described by means of extreme-value theory. This is a consequence of the large values of the energy density required to initiate the collapse of black holes in the early Universe and the finite duration of their collapse. Compared to the Gaussian description of the most extreme primordial density fluctuations, the holes' mass function is narrower and peaks towards larger masses. Secondly, thanks to the shallower fall-off of extreme-value distributions, the predicted abundance of primordial black holes is boosted by $10^{7}$ orders of magnit…
