Primordial black holes and secondary gravitational waves from string inspired general no-scale supergravity

TL;DR

This paper explores how string-inspired supergravity models can produce primordial black holes across a wide mass range and generate detectable secondary gravitational waves, linking early universe physics to observable signals.

Contribution

It introduces a no-scale supergravity inflationary model with an exponential Kähler potential modification, producing diverse PBH masses and associated gravitational wave spectra.

Findings

PBHs can account for dark matter in certain mass ranges.

Generated SIGWs span from nanohertz to kilohertz frequencies.

Model predictions are testable by upcoming gravitational wave observatories.

Abstract

The formation of primordial black hole (PBH) dark matter and the generation of scalar induced secondary gravitational waves (SIGWs) have been studied in the generic no-scale supergravity inflationary models. By adding an exponential term to the K\"ahler potential, the inflaton experiences a period of ultraslow-roll and the amplitude of primordial power spectrum at small scales is enhanced to $\mathcal{O}(10^{-2})$. The enhanced power spectra of primordial curvature perturbations can have both sharp and broad peaks. A wide mass range of PBHs can be produced in our model, and the frequencies of the accompanied SIGWs are ranged form nanohertz to kilohertz. We show four benchmark points where the generated PBH masses are around $\mathcal{O}(10^{-16}M_{\odot})$, $\mathcal{O}(10^{-12}M_{\odot})$, $\mathcal{O}(10^{-2}M_{\odot})$ and $\mathcal{O}(10^{2}M_{\odot})$. The PBHs with masses around $\mathcal{O}(10^{-16}M_{\odot})$ and $ \mathcal{O}(10^{-12}M_{\odot})$ can make up almost all the dark matter, and the accompanied SIGWs can be probed by the upcoming space-based gravitational wave observatory. Also, the SIGWs accompanied with the formation of stellar mass PBHs can be used to interpret the stochastic GW background in the nanohertz band, detected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for gravitational waves, and can be tested by future interferometric gravitational wave observatory.