The NANOGrav Collaboration has recently published strong evidence for a stochastic common-spectrum process that may be interpreted as a stochastic gravitational wave background. We show that such a signal can be explained by second-order gravitational waves produced during the formation of primordial black holes from the collapse of sizeable scalar perturbations generated during inflation. This possibility has two predictions: (i) the primordial black holes may comprise the totality of the dark matter with the dominant contribution to their mass function falling in the range (10-15÷10-11)M⊙ and (ii) the gravitational wave stochastic background will be seen as well by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna experiment.
NANOGrav Data Hints at Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
Franciolini G.;Riotto A.
2021
Abstract
The NANOGrav Collaboration has recently published strong evidence for a stochastic common-spectrum process that may be interpreted as a stochastic gravitational wave background. We show that such a signal can be explained by second-order gravitational waves produced during the formation of primordial black holes from the collapse of sizeable scalar perturbations generated during inflation. This possibility has two predictions: (i) the primordial black holes may comprise the totality of the dark matter with the dominant contribution to their mass function falling in the range (10-15÷10-11)M⊙ and (ii) the gravitational wave stochastic background will be seen as well by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna experiment.
Pubblicazioni consigliate
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
