[Abridged] Recently, the production of primordial black holes (PBHs) and secondary gravitational waves (GWs) due to enhanced scalar power on small scales have garnered considerable attention in the literature. Often, the mechanism considered to arrive at such enhanced power involves a modification of the standard slow roll inflationary dynamics, achieved with the aid of fine-tuned potentials. In this work, we investigate another well known method to generate features in the power spectrum wherein the initial state of the perturbations is assumed to be squeezed states. This approach is technically straightforward to implement since the Bogoliubov coefficients characterizing the squeezed initial states, can be immediately determined from the desired form of the power spectrum. It is known that, for squeezed initial states, the scalar bispectrum is strongly scale dependent and the consistency condition governing the scalar bispectrum in the squeezed limit is violated. In fact, the non-Gaussianity parameter $f_{_{\rm NL}}$ characterizing the scalar bispectrum proves to be inversely proportional to the squeezed mode and this dependence enhances its amplitude at large wave numbers making it highly sensitive to even a small deviation from the standard Bunch-Davies vacuum. These aspects can possibly aid in leading to enhanced formation of PBHs and generation of secondary GWs. However, we find that: (i) the desired form of the squeezed initial states may be challenging to achieve from a dynamical mechanism, and (ii) the backreaction due to the excited states severely limits the extent of deviation from the Bunch-Davies vacuum at large wave numbers. We argue that, unless the issue of backreaction is circumvented, squeezed initial states cannot lead to a substantial increase in power on small scales that is required for enhanced formation of PBHs and generation of secondary GWs.
We discuss two-stage dilaton-axion inflation models [1] and describe $α$-attractor models with either exponential or polynomial approach to the plateau. We implement one of the models of primordial black hole production proposed in [2] in the $α$-attractor context, and develop its supergravity version. The predictions of this model following from its polynomial attractor properties are: $n_s$ and $r$ are $α$-independent, $r$ depends on the mass parameter $μ$ defining the approach to the plateau. The tachyonic instability at the transition point between the two stages of inflation is proportion…
We derive the spectrum and analyse the detectability prospects of secondary gravity waves (GWs) associated to primordial black hole (PBH) production in a class of string inflationary models called Fibre Inflation. The inflationary potential features a near inflection point that induces a period of ultra slow-roll responsible for an enhancement of the scalar perturbations which can lead to PBHs with different masses and contributions to dark matter (DM) in agreement with current observational bounds, including CMB constraints on the scalar spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. This enh…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) generated by gravitational collapse of large primordial overdensities can be a fraction of the observed dark matter. In this paper, we introduce a mechanism to produce a large peak in the primordial power spectrum (PPS) in two-field inflationary models characterized by two stages of inflation based on a large non-canonical kinetic coupling. This mechanism is generic to several two-field inflationary models, due to a temporary tachyonic instability of the isocurvature perturbations at the transition between the two stages of inflation. We numerically compute the pr…
[Abridged] The primordial scalar power spectrum is well constrained on large scales, primarily by the observations of the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Over the last few years, it has been recognized that a sharp rise in power on small scales will lead to enhanced formation of primordial black holes (PBHs) and also generate secondary gravitational waves (GWs) of higher and, possibly, detectable amplitudes. It is well understood that scalar power spectra with COBE normalized amplitude on the CMB scales and enhanced amplitudes on smaller scales can be generated due to de…
Recent observational constraints indicate that primordial black holes (PBHs) with the mass scale $\sim 10^{-12}M_{\odot}$ can explain most of dark matter in the Universe. To produce this kind of PBHs, we need an enhance in the primordial scalar curvature perturbations to the order of ${\mathcal{O}(10^{-2})}$ at the scale $ k \sim 10^{12}~\rm Mpc^{-1}$. Here, we investigate the production of PBHs and induced gravitational waves (GWs) in the framework of \textbf{$k$-inflation}. We solve numerically the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation to obtain the primordial scalar power spectrum. In addition, we estim…
As potential candidates of dark matter, primordial black holes (PBHs) are within the core scopes of various astronomical observations. In light of the explosive development of gravitational wave (GW) and radio astronomy, we thoroughly analyze a stochastic background of cosmological GWs, induced by over large primordial density perturbations, with several spikes that was inspired by the sound speed resonance effect and can predict a particular pattern on the mass spectrum of PBHs. With a specific mechanicsm for PBHs formation, we for the first time perform the study of such induced GWs that ori…
Axion-like particles (ALPs), a compelling candidate for dark matter (DM), are the pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons of a spontaneously and explicitly broken global $U(1)$ symmetry. When the symmetry breaking happens after inflation, the ALP cosmology predicts the formation of a string-wall network which must annihilate early enough, producing gravitational waves (GWs) and primordial black holes (PBHs), as well as non-relativistic ALPs. We call this process catastrogenesis. We show that, under the generic assumption that the potential has several degenerate minima, GWs from string-wall annihilation…
In this paper we present a class of models in order to explain the production of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) and Gravitational Waves (GWs) in the Universe. These models are based on no-scale theory. By breaking the SU(2,1)/SU(2)$\times$U(1) symmetry we fix one of the two chiral fields and we derive effective scalar potentials which are capable of generating PBHs and GWs. As it is known in the literature there is an important unification of the no-scale models, which leads to the Starobinsky effective scalar potential based on the coset SU(2,1)/SU(2)$\times$U(1). We use this unification in or…
The analysis of gravitational Wave (GW) data from advanced LIGO provides the mass of each companion of binary black holes as the source of GWs. The mass of events corresponding to the binary black holes from GW is above $20$ M$_\odot$ which is much larger than the mass of astrophysical black holes detected by x-ray observations. In this work, we examine primordial black holes (PBHs) as the source of LIGO events. Assuming that $100\%$ of the dark matter is made of PBHs, we estimate the rate at which these objects make binaries, merge, and produce GWs as a function of redshift. The gravitational…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) produced in the early Universe have attracted wide interest for their ability to constitute dark matter and explain the compact binary coalescence. We propose a new mechanism of PBH production during first-order phase transitions (PTs) and find that PBHs are naturally produced during PTs model-independently. Because of the randomness of the quantum tunneling, there always exists some probability that the vacuum decay is postponed in a whole Hubble volume. Since the vacuum energy density remains constant while radiation is quickly redshifted in the expanding Univer…
We study aspects of inflation and the possibility of enhanced production of primordial black holes (PBHs) and gravitational waves (GWs) in a string-inspired model of two axion fields coupled to Chern-Simons gravity, which results in a running-vacuum-model inflation. Fluctuations of the scale invariant spectrum, consistent with the cosmological data, are provided in this model by world-sheet (non-perturbative) instanton terms of the axion field arising from string compactification. As a result of such modulations, there is an enhanced production of PBHs and GWs in such cosmologies, which may le…
We discuss the footprint of evaporation of primordial black holes (PBHs) on stochastic gravitational waves (GWs) induced by scalar perturbations. We consider the case where PBHs once dominated the Universe but eventually evaporated before the big bang nucleosynthesis. The reheating through the PBH evaporation could end with a sudden change in the equation of state of the Universe compared to the conventional reheating caused by particle decay. We show that this "sudden reheating" by the PBH evaporation enhances the induced GWs, whose amount depends on the length of the PBH-dominated era and th…
The NANOGrav collaboration for the pulsar timing array (PTA) observation recently announced evidence of an isotropic stochastic process, which may be the first detection of the stochastic gravitational-wave (GW) background. We discuss the possibility that the signal is caused by the second-order GWs associated with the formation of solar-mass primordial black holes (PBHs). This possibility can be tested by future interferometer-type GW observations targeting the stochastic GWs from merger events of solar-mass PBHs as well as by updates of PTA observations.
The energy density of relic gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by primordial black holes (PBHs) is calculated. We estimate the intensity of GWs produced at quantum and classical scattering of PBHs, the classical graviton emission from the PBH binaries in the early Universe, and the graviton emission due to PBH evaporation. If nonrelativistic PBHs dominated the cosmological energy density prior to their evaporation, the probability of formation of dense clusters of PBHs and their binaries in such clusters would be significant and the energy density of the generated gravitational waves in the pre…
We study the possibility of the Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) formation with the aim of finding a considerable fraction of Dark Matter (DM), using the gravitationally enhanced friction mechanism which arises from a nonminimal derivative coupling between the scalar field and the gravity. Assuming the nonminimal coupling parameter as a special function of the scalar field and considering the potential of natural inflation, we find three parameter sets that produce a period of ultra slow-roll inflation. This leads to sufficiently large enhancement in the curvature power spectra to form PBHs. We s…
We investigate the production of primordial black holes (PBHs) and scalar-induced gravitational waves (GWs) for cosmological models in the Horndeski theory of gravity. The cosmological models of our interest incorporate the derivative self-interaction of the scalar field and the kinetic coupling between the scalar field and gravity. We show that the scalar power spectrum of the primordial fluctuations can be enhanced on small scales due to these additional interactions. Thus, the formation of PBHs and the production of induced GWs are feasible for our model. Parameterizing the scalar power spe…
Gravitational waves (GWs) in the MHz - GHz frequency range are motivated by a host of early Universe phenomena such as oscillons, preheating, and cosmic strings. We point out that baryogenesis too serves as a motivation to probe GWs in this frequency range. The connection is through primordial black holes (PBHs): on the one hand, PBHs induce baryogenesis by Hawking evaporating into a species that has baryon number and $CP$ violating decays; on the other, PBHs induce GWs through second order effects when the scalar fluctuations responsible for their formation re-enter the horizon. We describe t…
The idea that primordial black holes (PBHs) can comprise most of the dark matter of the universe has recently reacquired a lot of momentum. Observational constraints, however, rule out this possibility for most of the PBH masses, with a notable exception around $10^{-12} M_\odot$. These light PBHs may be originated when a sizeable comoving curvature perturbation generated during inflation re-enters the horizon during the radiation phase. During such a stage, it is unavoidable that gravitational waves (GWs) are generated. Since their source is quadratic in the curvature perturbations, these GWs…
Within the framework of inflationary model with field-dependent kinetic term for quartic and natural potentials, we investigate generation of the primordial black holes (PBHs) and induced gravitational waves (GWs). In this setup, we consider a kinetic function as $G(ϕ)=g_I(ϕ)\big(1+g_{II}(ϕ)\big)$ and show that in the presence of first term $g_I(ϕ)$ both quartic and natural potentials, in contrast to the standard model of inflation, can be consistent, with the 68\% CL of Planck observations. Besides, the second term $g_{II}(ϕ)$ can cause a significant enhancement in the primordial curvature pe…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) can form as a result of primordial scalar perturbations at small scales. This PBH formation scenario has associated gravitational wave (GW) signatures from second-order GWs induced by the primordial curvature perturbation, and from GWs produced during an early PBH dominated era. We investigate the ability of next generation GW experiments, including BBO, LISA, and CE, to probe this PBH formation scenario in a wide mass range. Measuring the stochastic GW background with GW observatories can constrain the allowed parameter space of PBHs for masses 1e9 - 1e27 g. We a…
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…
The current observational constraints still leave a substantial mass window $\sim [10^{-16},10^{-14}] \cup [10^{-13},10^{-12}] M_\odot$ for primordial black holes (PBHs) representing all of dark matter (DM) in our Universe. The gravitational waves (GWs) induced by the curvature perturbations are inevitably generated during the formation of these PBHs, and fall in the frequency band of LISA. Such scalar induced gravitational waves (SIGWs) are supposed to be definitely detected by LISA even when the second-order local-type non-Gaussianity characterized by the parameter $F_{\rm NL}$ is taken into…
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 investigate the generation of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) with the aid of gravitationally increased friction mechanism originated from the NonMinimal field Derivative Coupling (NMDC) to gravity framework, with the quartic potential. Applying the coupling parameter as a two-parted function of inflaton field and fine-tuning of five parameter assortments we can acquire ultra slow-roll phase to slow down the inflaton field due to high friction. This enables us to achieve enough enhancement in the amplitude of curvature perturbations power spectra to generate PBHs with different masses. The re…
Here, Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) creation from exponential potential has been inquired, through gravitationally raised friction emanated from the nonminimal coupling between gravity and field derivative setup. Setting a two-parted exponential function of inflaton field as coupling parameter, and fine-tuning of four parameter cases of our model, we could sufficiently slow down the inflaton owing to high friction during an ultra slow-roll phase. This empowers us to achieve enough enhancement in the amplitude of curvature perturbations power spectra, via numerical solving of Mukhanov-Sasaki eq…
The recent observations of the gravitational waves (GWs) by LIGO-Virgo collaboration infer the increasing possibility of the primordial black holes (PBHs). Recently it was pointed out that sufficient PBHs are produced by the Affleck-Dine mechanism where inhomogeneous baryogenesis takes place due to change of the Hubble induced mass during and after inflation and forms high baryon bubbles (HBBs). The produced HBBs have large density contrasts through the QCD phase transition or stable Q-ball formation, which leads to formation of the LIGO PBHs. Furthermore, in this model stringent constraints f…
If the black holes detected by LIGO/VIRGO are primordial black holes (PBHs) sourcing from a large primordial curvature perturbation on small scales, the corresponding induced gravitational waves (GWs) would peak at nanohertz that is detectable by the current and future observations of pulsar timing array (PTA). In this paper we show that with the mass function estimated from the merger rate of LIGO O1 and O2 events, the induced GWs from such a curvature perturbation with a Gaussian narrow peak at some small scale would be in a seemingly mild tension with current constraints from PTA. However, …
We put forward a novel class of exotic celestial objects that can be produced through phase transitions occurred in the primordial Universe. These objects appear as bubbles of stellar sizes and can be dominated by primordial black holes (PBHs). We report that, due to the processes of Hawking radiation and binary evolution of PBHs inside these stellar bubbles, both electromagnetic and gravitational radiations can be emitted that are featured on the gamma-ray spectra and stochastic gravitational waves (GWs). Our results reveal that, depending on the mass distribution, the exotic stellar bubbles …
We study the process of the Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) production in the novel framework, namely $α$-attractor Galileon inflation (G-inflation) model. In our framework, we take the Galileon function as $G(ϕ)=G_{I}(ϕ)\left(1+G_{II}(ϕ)\right)$, where the part $G_{I}(ϕ)$ is motivated from the $α$-attractor inflationary scenario in its original non-canonical frame, and it ensures for the model to be consistent with the Planck 2018 observations at the CMB scales. The part $G_{II}(ϕ)$ is invoked to enhance the curvature perturbations at some smaller scales which in turn gives rise to PBHs formati…
In this contribution we discuss the possibility of generating an observable gravitational wave (GW) background by coupling a pseudo-scalar inflaton to some Abelian gauge fields. This analysis is performed by dividing inflationary models into universality classes. We find that of the most promising scenario is a Starobinsky-like model, which may lead to the generation of observational signatures both in upcoming CMB detectors as well as for direct GW detectors. The signal which can be produced in these models would both be observable in ground-based detectors, such as advanced LIGO, and in spac…
We study gravitational waves (GWs) induced by non-Gaussian curvature perturbations. We calculate the density parameter per logarithmic frequency interval, $Ω_\text{GW}(k)$, given that the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation $\mathcal{P}_\mathcal{R}(k)$ has a narrow peak at some small scale $k_*$, with a local-type non-Gaussianity, and constrain the nonlinear parameter $f_\text{NL}$ with the future LISA sensitivity curve as well as with constraints from the abundance of the primordial black holes (PBHs). We find that the non-Gaussian contribution to $Ω_\text{GW}$ increases as $k^3$, pe…
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) in the mass range $\sim 10^{17}- 10^{22}$g are currently unconstrained, and can constitute the full Dark Matter (DM) density of the universe. Motivated by this, in the current work, we aim to relate the existence of PBHs in the said mass range to the production of observable Gravitational Waves (GWs) in the upcoming GW detectors. We follow a relatively model-independent approach assuming that the PBHs took birth in a radiation dominated era from enhanced primordial curvature perturbation at small scales produced by inflation. We show that the constraints from CMB …
Primordial black holes (PBHs) can be produced by the perturbations that exit the horizon during inflationary phase. While inflation models predict the power spectrum of the perturbations in Fourier space, the PBH abundance depends on the probability distribution function (PDF) of density perturbations in real space. In order to estimate the PBH abundance in a given inflation model, we must relate the power spectrum in Fourier space to the PDF in real space by coarse-graining the perturbations with a window function. However, there are uncertainties on what window function should be used, which…
We investigate features of Gravitational Waves (GWs) induced by primordial density fluctuations with a large amplitude peak associated with formation of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). It is shown that the spectrum of induced GW is insensitive to the width of the peak in wavenumber space provided it is below a certain value, but the amplitude of the spectrum reduces at the peak frequency and decreases faster at low frequencies for a larger width. A correspondence between the GW amplitude and PBH abundance is also investigated incorporating the peak width. We find that PBHs with masses 10^{20-26…
Parametric resonance in a single-field inflationary model with a periodic structure on the potential gives rise to curvature perturbations with large amplitudes on small scales, which could result in observable primordial black holes (PBHs) and concomitant gravitational waves (GWs) induced by curvature perturbations in the radiation-dominated era. In such a model, GWs associated with the PBH formation were investigated in Ref. [1]. In this paper, we consider a stochastic GW background sourced by inflaton perturbations resonantly amplified during inflation. We compute the energy spectra of indu…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) are one of the candidates to explain the gravitational wave (GW) signals observed by the LIGO detectors. Among several phenomena in the early Universe, cosmic inflation is a major example to generate PBHs from large primordial density perturbations. In this paper, we discuss the possibility to interpret the observed GW events as mergers of PBHs which are produced by cosmic inflation. The primordial curvature perturbation should be large enough to produce a sizable amount of PBHs and thus we have several other probes to test this scenario. We point out that the cur…
