Primordial black holes as dark matter through Higgs field criticality

Journal Article · Mon Jun 22 00:00:00 UTC 2020 · Physical Review. D.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.101.123523 · OSTI ID:1801936

Passaglia, Samuel ^[1]; Hu, Wayne ^[2]; Motohashi, Hayato ^[3]

---

1. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States); OSTI
2. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
3. Kyoto Univ. (Japan)

In this work, we study the dynamics of a spectator Higgs field which stochastically evolves during inflation onto near-critical trajectories on the edge of a runaway instability. We show that its fluctuations do not produce primordial black holes in sufficient abundance to be the dark matter, nor do they produce significant second-order gravitational waves. First we show that the Higgs produces larger fluctuations on cosmic microwave background scales than on primordial black hole (PBH) scales, itself a no go for a viable PBH scenario. Then we track the superhorizon perturbations nonlinearly through reheating using the $$δ\textit{N}$$ formalism to show that they are not converted to large curvature fluctuations. Our conclusions hold regardless of any fine-tuning of the Higgs field for both the Standard Model Higgs and Higgs potentials modified to prevent unbounded runaway.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); National Science Foundation (NSF); Simons Foundation; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0009924
• OSTI ID: 1801936
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D., Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 101; ISSN 2470-0010
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English