Production of high stellar-mass primordial black holes in trapped inflation

TL;DR

This paper explores how trapped inflation with a steep potential can naturally produce high stellar-mass primordial black holes, potentially explaining dark matter and observable via gravitational waves.

Contribution

It introduces a specific inflaton potential that induces large non-Gaussian perturbations leading to primordial black hole formation in trapped inflation.

Findings

Primordial black holes can form during steep potential trapped inflation.

The model can produce black holes matching LIGO's observed masses.

Gravitational waves sourced by particle production are discussed.

Abstract

Trapped inflation has been proposed to provide a successful inflation with a steep potential. We discuss the formation of primordial black holes in the trapped inflationary scenario. We show that primordial black holes are naturally produced during inflation with a steep trapping potential. In particular, we have given a recipe for an inflaton potential with which particle production can induce large non-Gaussian curvature perturbation that leads to the formation of high stellar-mass primordial black holes. These primordial black holes could be dark matter observed by the LIGO detectors through a binary black-hole merger. At the end, we have given an attempt to realize the required inflaton potential in the axion monodromy inflation, and discussed the gravitational waves sourced by the particle production.