Reconstructing the Inflaton Potential: Primordial Black Holes and Gravitational Waves in Slow Roll and Ultra Slow Roll Single Field Inflation

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to reconstruct the inflaton potential from a given power spectrum, enabling the creation of inflation models that produce primordial black holes and gravitational waves consistent with observations, including dark matter and PTA signals.

Contribution

It introduces an exact reconstruction technique applicable in both slow roll and ultra slow roll inflation, facilitating new models for primordial black holes and gravitational wave backgrounds.

Findings

Constructed ultra slow roll inflation scenarios matching dark matter abundance.

Generated scalar power spectra compatible with PTA gravitational wave observations.

Proposed potential tests via future CMB $d$-distortion measurements.

Abstract

We present new single field inflationary scenarios that produce the critical abundance of primordial black holes as dark matter reconstructing the inflaton potential from an input power spectrum. The method is exact in the slow roll approximation but remains effective even when the slow roll conditions are temporarily violated such as in ultra slow roll models. With this method we construct new ultra slow roll scenarios and also models that reproduce the DM abundance within the slow roll regime. As a second application we consider a scalar power spectrum that generates a secondary gravitational wave background compatible with the one recently observed in Pulsar Timing Arrays experiments. These scenarios could be tested by future observations of $\mu-$distortions of the CMB.