Non-Standard Thermal History and Formation of Primordial Black Holes in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores how a modified inflationary model with Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity can produce primordial black holes across a wide mass range, potentially explaining dark matter and observed gravitational wave events.

Contribution

It introduces a specific coupling in the inflation model that enhances curvature perturbations, enabling PBH formation over diverse mass scales compatible with observational data.

Findings

PBHs formed in a wide mass range from 10^{-14} to 10 solar masses.

The model predicts PBHs can account for dark matter and gravitational wave observations.

Enhanced curvature spectrum due to USR regime during inflation.

Abstract

Inflation provides a suitable environment for the formation of Primordial Black Holes(PBHs). In this article, we examine the formation of primordial black holes in the Mutated Hilltop inflation model coupled with the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet term. A suitable choice of the coupling function with adjusted parameters can produce the USR regime during the inflationary phase, which lasts for some number of e-folds. The scalar field in this regime remains almost unchanged, and the first slow-roll parameter $\epsilon_1$ drops dramatically, leading to a significant enhancement to the curvature power spectrum for small scales so that it grows up to order of $\mathcal{O}(0.01)$; a crucial feature for producing PBH and secondary gravitational waves (GWs). We investigate the formation of PBHs for different sets of parameters. By considering the behavior of the scalar power spectrum, it is realized that the peak in the scalar power spectrum occurs in different scales. Then, the presented model is capable of predicting PBH formation in a wide range mass, from $\mathcal{O}(10^{-14})M_{\odot}$ to $\mathcal{O}(10)M_{\odot}$, which are compatible with the LIGO-Virgo data. PBHs with mass $\mathcal{O}(10^{-5})M_{\odot}$ can account for the micro-lensing event in OGLE as well as the asteroid masses $\mathcal{O}(10^{-15})M_{\odot}-\mathcal{O}(10^{-12})M_{\odot}$ PBH can be attributed to $100\% $ dark matter present in the universe. The generated perturbations during inflation re-enter the horizons after the end of inflation, where the universe may be in a non-standard epoch rather than the radiation-dominant phase, with an equation of state $1/3< \omega \leq 1$...