We demonstrate that adiabatic dark matter can be generated by gravity induced symmetry breaking during inflation. We study a $Z_2$ symmetric scalar singlet that couples to other fields only through gravity and for which the symmetry is broken by the spacetime curvature during inflation when the non-minimal coupling $ξ$ is negative. We find that the symmetry breaking leads to the formation of adiabatic dark matter with the observed abundance for the singlet mass $m\sim{\rm MeV}$ and $|ξ|\sim 1$.
Recent data suggest that the Universe could be positively curved. Combined with an inflationary stage, this might lead to a curvature bounce instead of the Big Bang. The background evolution is presented, as a function of the parameters controlling the cosmic evolution. The primordial tensor spectrum is also calculated and possible observational footprints of the model are underlined. Several potentials are considered and general remarks are made about "naturalness" in this context.
The observational data of primordial black holes and scalar-induced gravitational waves can constrain the primordial curvature perturbation at small scales. We parameterize the primordial curvature perturbation by a broken power law form and find that it is consistent with many inflation models that can produce primordial black holes, such as nonminimal derivative coupling inflation, scalar-tensor inflation, Gauss-Bonnet inflation, and K/G inflation. The constraints from primordial black holes on the primordial curvature power spectrum with the broken power law form are obtained, where the fra…
The formation of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) through the collapse of large fluctuations in the early universe is a rare event. This manifests itself, for instance, through the non-Gaussian tail of the formation probability. To compute such probability and the abundance of PBHs, the curvature perturbation is frequently adopted. In this note we emphasize that its use does not provide the correct PBH formation probability. Through a path-integral approach we show that the exact calculation of the PBH abundance demands the knowledge of multivariate joint probabilities of the curvature perturbati…
The properties of primordial curvature perturbations on small scales are still unknown while those on large scales have been well probed by the observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the large scale structure. In this paper, we propose the reconstruction method of primordial curvature perturbations on small scales through the merger rate of binary primordial black holes, which could form from large primordial curvature perturbation on small scales.
Whether or not the primordial gravitational wave (GW) produced during inflation is sufficiently strong to be observable, GWs are necessarily produced from the primordial curvature perturbations in the second order of perturbation. The induced GWs can be enhanced by curvature perturbations enhanced at small scales or by the presence of matter-dominated stages of the cosmological history. We analytically calculate the integral in the expression of the power spectrum of the induced GWs which is a universal part independent of the spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbations. This makes the …
Scalar field with generalized kinetic interactions metamorphoses depending on its field value, ranging from cosmological constant to stiff matter. We show that such a scalar field can give rise to temporal enhancement of the curvature perturbation in the primordial Universe, leading to efficient production of primordial black holes while the enhancement persists. If the inflation energy scale is high, those mini-black holes evaporate by the Hawking radiation much before Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the effective reheating of the Universe is achieved by the black hole evaporation. Dominance of …
Primordial black holes and secondary gravitational waves can be used to probe the small scale physics at very early time. For secondary gravitational waves produced after the horizon reentry, we derive an analytical formula for the time integral of the source and analytical behavior of the time dependence of the energy density of induced gravitational waves is obtained. By proposing a piecewise power law parametrization for the power spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, we use the observational constraints on primordial black hole dark matter to obtain an upper bound on the power sp…
We study the generation of the primordial curvature perturbation in multi-field inflation. Considering both the evolution of the perturbation during inflation and the effects generated at the end of inflation, we present a general formula for the curvature perturbation. We provide the analytic expressions of the power spectrum, spectral tilt and non-Gaussianity for the separable potentials of two inflaton scalars, and apply them to some specific models.
As a candidate bound for the Binary Black Hole (BBH) merger events detected by LIGO/Virgo, Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) provide a useful tool to investigate the primordial curvature perturbations on small scales. Using the GWTC-1 to GWTC-3 catalogs, under the scenario that PBHs originate from large primordial curvature perturbations on small scales during inflationary epoch, we for the first time reconstruct the power spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations on small scales. It is found that the value of the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum is enhanced to $\mathcal{O}(10^{-2})…
We estimate the maximum allowed amplitude for the power spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbations, ${\cal P_R}(k)$, on all scales from the absence of any detection signals of sub-solar mass black holes. In particular we analyze the constraints on the PBHs and we focus on the low mass limit where the Hawking radiation is expected to significantly influence the big bang observables, considering also different early cosmic histories. We derive the upper bounds for the variance of density perturbations, $σ(M)$, for any possible reheating temperature as well as for the cosmological scenari…
In this paper I review the theory and numerical simulations of non-linear dynamics of preheating, a stage of dynamical instability at the end of inflation during which homogeneous inflaton explosively decays and deposits its energy into excitation of other matter fields. I focus on preheating in chaotic inflation models, which proceeds via broad parametric resonance. I describe a simple method to evaluate Floquet exponents, calculating stability diagrams of Mathieu and Lame equations describing development of instability in $m^2ϕ^2$ and $λϕ^4$ preheating models. I discuss basic numerical metho…
A contribution $ζ_χ$ to the curvature perturbation will be generated during the waterfall that ends hybrid inflation, that may be significant on small scales. In particular, it may lead to excessive black hole formation. We here consider standard hybrid inflation, where the tachyonic mass of the waterfall field is much bigger than the Hubble parameter. We calculate $ζ_χ$ in the simplest case, and see why earlier calculations of $ζ_χ$ are incorrect.
Primordial black holes could have been formed in the early universe from sufficiently large cosmological perturbations re-entering the horizon when the Universe is still radiation dominated. These originate from the spectrum of curvature perturbations generated during inflation at small-scales. Because of the non-linear relation between the curvature perturbation $ζ$ and the overdensity $δρ$, the formation of the primordial black holes is affected by intrinsic non-Gaussianity even though the curvature perturbation is Gaussian. We investigate the impact of this non-Gaussianity on the critical t…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) are an important tool in cosmology to probe the primordial spectrum of small-scale curvature perturbations that reenter the cosmological horizon during radiation domination epoch. We numerically solve the evolution of spherically symmetric highly perturbed configurations to clarify the criteria of PBHs formation using an extremely wide class of curvature profiles characterized by five parameters, (in contrast to only two parameters used in all previous papers) which specify the curvature profiles not only at the central region but also at the outer boundary of con…
We consider a primordial SU(2) vector multiplet during inflation in models where quantum fluctuations of vector fields are involved in producing the curvature perturbation. Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to models populated by vector fields, given the interesting possibility of generating some level of statistical anisotropy in the cosmological perturbations. The scenario we propose is strongly motivated by the fact that, for non-Abelian gauge fields, self-interactions are responsible for generating extra terms in the cosmological correlation functions, which are naturally absent i…
Large-amplitude density perturbations may have collapsed during the radiation dominated epoch of the Universe to form primordial black holes (PBHs). There are several constraints to the abundance of PBHs that stem from evaporation or gravitational effects. Due to the connection between primordial perturbations and the formation of PBHs, constraints on the present-day abundance of PBHs can be translated into limits on the primordial curvature power spectrum. We introduce several new observational and forecasted constraints to the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum and incorporate in our…
We investigate the primordial power spectra for general kinetic inflation models that support a period of kinetic dominance in the case of curved universes. We present derivations of the Mukhanov-Sasaki equations with a nonstandard scalar kinetic Lagrangian which manifests itself through the inflationary sound speed $c_s^2$. We extend the analytical approximations exploited in Contaldi et al [1] and Thavanesan et al [2] to general kinetic Lagrangians and show the effect of $k$-inflation on the primordial power spectra for models with curvature. In particular, the interplay between sound speed …
We investigate a new mechanism to create large curvature perturbations on small scales due to parameter resonance in a single-field inflationary model with a small periodic structure upon the potential. After reentering the horizon, the amplified curvature perturbations can lead to observable primordial black holes as well as stochastic gravitational waves. The mass of primordial black holes and frequency of the induced gravitational waves depend on the model parameters. The resulted primordial black hole could constitute all dark matter or a fraction of dark matter in the universe, and corres…
We study effects on the luminosity distance of a local inhomogeneity seeded by primordial curvature perturbations of the type predicted by the inflationary scenario and constrained by the cosmic microwave background radiation. We find that a local underdensity originated from a one, two or three standard deviations peaks of the primordial curvature perturbations field can induce corrections to the value of a cosmological constant of the order of $0.6%,1%,1.5%$ respectively. These effects cannot be neglected in the precision cosmology era in which we are entering. Our results can be considered …
For a variety of on-going and planned gravitational-wave (GW) experiments, we study expected constraints on the fraction ($f_{\rm PBH}$) of primordial black holes (PBHs) in dark matter by evaluating the energy-density spectra of two kinds of stochastic GW backgrounds. The first one is produced from an incoherent superposition of GWs emitted from coalescences of all the binary PBHs. The second one is induced through non-linear mode couplings of large primordial curvature perturbations inevitably associated with the generation of PBHs in the early Universe. In this paper, we focus on the PBHs wi…
We develop the non-linear statistics of primordial black holes generated by a gaussian spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations. This is done by employing the compaction function as the main statistical variable under the constraints that: a) the over-density has a high peak at a point $\vec{x}_0$, b) the compaction function has a maximum at a smoothing scale $R$, and finally, c) the compaction function amplitude at its maximum is higher than the threshold necessary to trigger a gravitational collapse into a black hole of the initial over-density. Our calculation allows for the fact that…
We study the spectral tilt of primordial perturbations in Horava-Lifshitz cosmology. The uniform approximation, which is a generalization of the familiar Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) method, is employed to compute the spectral index both numerically and analytically in a closed form. We clarify how the spectral index depends on the inflation model and parameters in the modified dispersion relation.
We investigate the primordial curvature perturbation by the observation of dark matter substructure. Assuming a bump in the spectrum of the curvature perturbation in the wavenumber of k>1 Mpc^{-1}, we track the evolution of the host halo and subhalos in a semi-analytic way. Taking into account possible uncertainties in the evaluation of the tidal stripping effect on the subhalo growth, we find a new robust bound on the curvature perturbation with a bump from the number of observed dwarf spheroidal galaxies in our Galaxy and the observations of the stellar stream. The upper limit on the amplitu…
We consider several early Universe models that allow for production of large curvature perturbations at small scales. As is well known, such perturbations can lead to formation of primordial black holes (PBHs). We briefly review the today's situation with PBH constraints and then focus on two models in which strongly non-Gaussian curvature perturbations are predicted: the hybrid inflation waterfall model and the curvaton model. We show that PBH constraints on the values of curvature perturbation power spectrum amplitude are strongly dependent on the shape of perturbations and can significantly…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) can form in the early Universe via the collapse of large density perturbations. There are tight constraints on the abundance of PBHs formed due to their gravitational effects and the consequences of their evaporation. These abundance constraints can be used to constrain the primordial power spectrum, and hence models of inflation, on scales far smaller than those probed by cosmological observations. We compile, and where relevant update, the constraints on the abundance of PBHs before calculating the constraints on the curvature perturbation, taking into account t…
In the model where Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) form from large primordial curvature (C) perturbations, i.e., CPBHs, constraints on PBH abundance provide in principle constraints on the primordial curvature power spectrum. This connection however depends necessarily on the details of PBH formation mechanism. In this paper we provide, for the first time, constraints on the primordial curvature power spectrum from the latest limits on PBH abundance, taking into account all the steps from gravitational collapse in real space to PBH formation. In particular, we use results from numerical relativi…
We analyze primordial non-gaussianities in presence of an ultra-slow phase during the inflationary dynamics, focusing on scenarios relevant for the production of primordial black holes. We compute the three-point correlation function of comoving curvature perturbations finding that non-gaussianities are sizable, and predominantly local. In the context of threshold statistics, we analyze their impact for the abundance of primordial black holes, and their interplay with the non-gaussianities arising from the non-linear relation between density and curvature perturbations. We find that non-gaussi…
We compute the three-point cross-correlation function of the primordial curvature perturbation generated during inflation with two powers of a vector field in a model where conformal invariance is broken by a direct coupling of the vector field with the inflaton. If the vector field is identified with the electromagnetic field, this correlation would be a non-Gaussian signature of primordial magnetic fields generated during inflation. We find that the signal is maximized for the flattened configuration where the wave number of the curvature perturbation is twice that of the vector field and in…
We study the contribution to the primordial curvature perturbation on observational scales generated by the reheating field in massless preheating. To do so we use lattice simulations and a recent extension to the $δN$ formalism. The work demonstrates the functionality of these techniques for calculating the observational signatures of models in which non-perturbative reheating involves a light scalar field.
Future cosmic microwave background polarization experiments will search for evidence of primordial tensor modes at large angular scales, in the multipole range $4 \leq \ell \leq 50.$ Because in that range there is some mild evidence of departures from scale invariance in the power spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, one may wonder about the possibility of similar deviations appearing in the primordial power spectrum of tensor modes. Here we address this issue and analyze the possible presence of features in the tensor spectrum resulting from the dynamics of primordial fluctuations …
It has been recently established that, if the nonlinear relationship between the overdensity perturbations and the curvature perturbations are taken into account, non-Gaussianity is introduced in the overdensity statistics which alters the expected primordial black hole abundance. This is explored by using the nonlinear relationship between the overdensities and curvature perturbations up to second order where a negative skewness and positive kurtosis aims at lowering and increasing the abundance while an abundance comparable to Gaussian perturbations is obtained by adjusting the amplitude of …
Ultralight primordial black holes (PBHs) with masses $\lesssim 10^{15}$g and subatomic Schwarzschild radii, produced in the early Universe, are expected to have evaporated by the current cosmic age due to Hawking radiation. Based on this assumption, a number of constraints on the abundance of ultralight PBHs have been made. However, Hawking radiation has thus far not been verified experimentally. It would, therefore, be of interest if constraints on ultralight PBHs could be placed independent of the assumption of Hawking-radiation. In this paper, we explore the possibility of probing these PBH…
There exist two kinds of stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds associated with the primordial curvature perturbations. One is called induced gravitational wave due to the nonlinear coupling of curvature perturbations to tensor perturbations, while the other is produced by coalescences of binary primordial black holes formed when the large amplitude curvature perturbations reenter the horizon in the radiation dominant era. In this paper we find a quite useful relation for the peak frequencies of these two stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds. This relation can not only offer a smoking-…
The existence of magnetic fields in the universe is unmistakable. They are observed at all scales from stars to galaxy clusters. However, the origin of these fields remains enigmatic. It is believed that magnetic field seeds may have emerged from inflation, under certain conditions. This possibility is analised in the context of an alternative theory of gravity with non-minimal coupling between curvature and matter. We find, through the solution of the generalised Maxwell equations in the context of non-minimal models, that for general slow-roll inflationary scenarios with low reheating temper…
Ultracompact minihalos (UCMHs) are dense dark matter structures which can form from large density perturbations shortly after matter-radiation equality. If dark matter is in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), then UCMHs may be detected via their gamma-ray emission. We investigate how the {\em{Fermi}} satellite could constrain the abundance of UCMHs and place limits on the power spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation. Detection by {\em Fermi} would put a lower limit on the UCMH halo fraction. The smallest detectable halo fraction, $f_{\rm UCMH} \gtrsim 10^{-7}$…
A diagrammatic approach to calculate n-point correlators of the primordial curvature perturbation ζwas developed a few years ago following the spirit of the Feynman rules in Quantum Field Theory. The methodology is very useful and time-saving, as it is for the case of the Feynman rules in the particle physics context, but, unfortunately, is not very well known by the cosmology community. In the present work, we extend such an approach in order to include not only scalar field perturbations as the generators of ζ, but also vector field perturbations. The purpose is twofold: first, we would like…
We extend the work of Contaldi et al. and derive analytical approximations for primordial power spectra arising from models of inflation which include primordial spatial curvature. These analytical templates are independent of any specific inflationary potential and therefore illustrate and provide insight into the generic effects and predictions of primordial curvature, manifesting as cut-offs and oscillations at low multipoles and agreeing with numerical calculations. We identify through our analytical approximation that the effects of curvature can be mathematically attributed to shifts in …
We study an inevitable cosmological consequence in PeV scale SUSY-breaking scenarios. We focus on the SUSY-breaking scale corresponding to the gravitino mass $m_{3/2}=100{\rm eV}-1{\rm keV}$. We argue that the presence of an early matter-dominated era and the resulting entropy production are requisite for the Universe with this gravitino mass. We infer the model-independent minimum amount of the entropy production $Δ$ by requiring that the number of dwarf satellite galaxies $N_{\rm sat}$ in the Milky Way exceed the currently observed value, i.e. $N_{\rm sat}\gtrsim63$. This entropy production …
We consider the generation of primordial curvature perturbation by general non-Abelian vector fields without committing to a particular group. Self-interactions of non-Abelian fields make the field perturbation non-Gaussian. We calculate the bispectrum of the field perturbation using the in-in formalism at tree level. The bispectrum is dominated by the classical evolution of fields outside the horizon. In view of this we show that the dominant contribution can be obtained from the homogeneous classical equation of motion. Then we calculate the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation. The …
We study the effect of the nonlinear relation between density and curvature perturbations on the formation of PBHs. By calculating the variance and skewness of the density perturbation we derive the non-Gaussian property. As a criterion for PBH formation, the compaction function is used and it is found that larger curvature perturbations are required due to the nonlinear effect. We estimate the PBH abundance based on the Press-Schechter formalism with non-Gaussian probability density function during Radiation dominated era. It is found that the nonlinear effect slightly suppresses the PBH form…
As one of the promising candidates of cold dark matter (DM), primordial black holes (PBHs) were formed due to the collapse of over-densed regions generated by the enhanced curvature perturbations during the radiation-dominated era. The enhanced curvature perturbations are expected to be non-Gaussian in some relevant inflation models and hence the higher-order loop corrections to the curvature power spectrum might be non-negligible as well as altering the abundance of PBHs. In this paper, we calculate the one-loop correction to the curvature power spectrum with local-type non-Gaussianities char…
