The Minimum Testable Abundance of Primordial Black Holes at Future Gravitational-Wave Detectors

TL;DR

This paper forecasts the sensitivity of future gravitational-wave detectors to primordial black holes, indicating they could detect extremely low abundances, down to one part in ten billion, depending on black hole mass and distribution.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed forecast of the minimum primordial black hole abundance detectable by upcoming gravitational-wave experiments across various mass ranges.

Findings

Detectors may test primordial black hole abundances as low as 10^-10.

Sensitivity varies with black hole mass and spatial distribution.

Future experiments will significantly constrain primordial black hole scenarios.

Abstract

The next generation of gravitational-wave experiments, such as Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer and LISA, will test the primordial black hole scenario. We provide a forecast for the minimum testable value of the abundance of primordial black holes as a function of their masses for both the unclustered and clustered spatial distributions at formation. In particular, we show that these instruments may test abundances, relative to the dark matter, as low as $10^{-10}$.