PBH dark matter from axion inflation

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2017/07/048· OSTI ID:22676081

Domcke, Valerie; Pieroni, Mauro; Witkowski, Lukas T. ^[1]; Muia, Francesco ^[2]

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1. AstroParticule et Cosmologie, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS, CEA, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 10, rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, F-75205 Paris Cedex 13 (France)
2. Paris Centre for Cosmological Physics, 10, rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, F-75205 Paris Cedex 13 (France)

Protected by an approximate shift symmetry, axions are well motivated candidates for driving cosmic inflation. Their generic coupling to the Chern-Simons term of any gauge theory gives rise to a wide range of potentially observable signatures, including equilateral non-Gaussianites in the CMB, chiral gravitational waves in the range of direct gravitational wave detectors and primordial black holes (PBHs). In this paper we revisit these predictions for axion inflation models non-minimally coupled to gravity. Contrary to the case of minimally coupled models which typically predict scale-invariant mass distributions for the generated PBHs at small scales, we demonstrate how broadly peaked PBH spectra naturally arises in this setup. For specific parameter values, all of dark matter can be accounted for by PBHs.

• OSTI ID: 22676081
• Journal Information: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2017, Issue 07; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
APPROXIMATIONS
AXIONS
BLACK HOLES
CHIRALITY
FORECASTING
GAUGE INVARIANCE
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
MASS
MASS DISTRIBUTION
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
RELICT RADIATION
SPECTRA
SYMMETRY