Power spectrum with $k^6$ growth for primordial black holes

TL;DR

This paper explores how sudden decreases in sound speed during inflation can produce a steep $k^6$ growth in the power spectrum, leading to abundant primordial black hole formation while satisfying CMB constraints.

Contribution

It demonstrates that combined reductions in sound speed and inflaton speed can generate a $k^6$ power spectrum growth, the steepest reported so far, with implications for primordial black holes.

Findings

Power spectrum can have a $k^6$ growth under certain conditions.

Sudden decrease in sound speed affects the infrared scale dependence.

Model can produce abundant primordial black holes while satisfying CMB constraints.

Abstract

The decrease of both the rolling speed of the inflaton and the sound speed of the curvature perturbations can amplify the curvature perturbations during inflation so as to generate a sizable amount of primordial black holes. In the ultraslow-roll inflation scenario, it has been found that the power spectrum of curvature perturbations has a $k^4$ growth. In this paper, we find that when the speed of sound decreases suddenly, the curvature perturbations becomes scale dependent in the infrared limit and the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation only has a $k^2$ growth. Furthermore, by studying the evolution of the power spectrum in the inflation model, in which both the sound speed of the curvature perturbations and the rolling speed of the inflaton are reduced, we find that the power spectrum is nearly scale invariant at the large scales to satisfy the constraint from the cosmic microwave background radiation observations, and at the same time can be enhanced at the small scales to result in an abundant formation of primordial black holes. In the cases of the simultaneous changes of the sound speed and the slow-roll parameter $\eta$ and the change of the sound speed preceding that of the slow-roll parameter $\eta$, the power spectrum can possess a $k^6$ growth under certain conditions, which is the steepest growth of the power spectrum reported so far.