The evolution of primordial black holes and their final observable spins

By V. D. Luca, G. Franciolini, P. Pani, A. Riotto. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2020

142 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Primordial black holes in the mass range of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors can comprise a significant fraction of the dark matter. Mass and spin measurements from coalescences can be used to distinguish between an astrophysical or a primordial origin of the binary black holes. In standard scenarios the spin of primordial black holes is very small at formation. However, the mass and spin can evolve through the cosmic history due to accretion. We show that the mass and spin of primordial black holes are correlated in a redshift-dependent fashion, in particular primordial black holes with masses below 𝒪(30)M· are likely non-spinning at any redshift, whereas heavier black holes can be nearly extremal up to redshift z∼10. The dependence of the mass and spin distributions on the redshift can be probed with future detectors such as the Einstein Telescope. The mass and spin evolution affect the gravitational waveform parameters, in particular the distribution of the final mass and spin of the merger remnant, and that of the effective spin of the binary. We argue that, compared to the astrophysical-formation scenario, a primordial origin of black hole binaries might better explain the spin distribution of merger events detected by LIGO-Virgo, in which the effective spin parameter of the binary is compatible to zero except possibly for few high-mass events. Upcoming results from LIGO-Virgo third observation run might reinforce or weaken these predictions.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9d5d728a886e18bfa5ad6dc3a299edb3a31b0f9e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Florian Kuhnel
2. B. Carr
3. A. Riotto
4. G. Franciolini
5. V. D. Luca
6. M. Raidal
7. P. Pani
8. V. Vaskonen

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. Florian Kuhnel
2. B. Carr
3. A. Riotto
4. G. Franciolini
5. V. Vennin
6. D. Langlois
7. M. Raidal
8. H. Veermae

Citations in the corpus

• Gravitational waves from a universe filled with primordial black holes (2020, background): “It is therefore less relevant for smaller black holes, and recent analyses [62, 63] find that accretion is negligible when mPBH < O(10)M .”
• Primordial black holes confront LIGO/Virgo data: current situation (2020, background): “This is justified by the fact that, in the case of PBH mergers, the fraction of second-generation events can be neglected in the LIGO/Virgo band [12, 30, 31].”
• Two populations of LIGO-Virgo black holes (2020, background): “2 Also accretion can affect the PBH merger rate and generate spins for PBH [22, 24, 41].”
• Primordial black holes as dark matter candidates (2021, background): “This goes against a stellar binary origin [224] but is a prediction of the PBH scenario [225], although accretion could modify this conclusion [226].”