Constraints on the Primordial Black Hole Abundance from the First Advanced LIGO Observation Run Using the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background

TL;DR

This paper uses Advanced LIGO's limits on the stochastic gravitational-wave background to place new constraints on the abundance of primordial black holes in dark matter, especially in the 1-100 solar mass range, surpassing previous bounds.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to constrain primordial black hole abundance using gravitational-wave background data from Advanced LIGO, improving existing limits significantly.

Findings

LIGO's first run constrains PBH abundance in 1-100 solar mass range.

Constraints are tighter than previous microlensing and dwarf galaxy bounds.

Potential detection of stochastic background from subsolar mass PBHs in future observations.

Abstract

Advanced LIGO's discovery of gravitational-wave events is stimulating extensive studies on the origin of binary black holes. Assuming that the gravitational-wave events can be explained by binary primordial black hole mergers, we utilize the upper limits on the stochastic gravitational-wave background given by Advanced LIGO as a new observational window to independently constrain the abundance of primordial black holes in dark matter. We show that Advanced LIGO's first observation run gives the best constraint on the primordial black hole abundance in the mass range $1 M_\odot \lesssim M_\text{PBH}\lesssim 100 M_\odot$, pushing the previous microlensing and dwarf galaxy dynamics constraints tighter by 1 order of magnitude. Moreover, we discuss the possibility to detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from primordial black holes, in particular from subsolar mass primordial black holes, by Advanced LIGO in the near future.