Ruling out QCD phase transition as a PBH origin of LIGO/Virgo events

The best-motivated scenario for a sizable primordial black hole (PBH) contribution to the LIGO/Virgo binary black hole mergers invokes the QCD phase transition, which naturally enhances the probability to form PBH with masses of stellar scale. We reconsider the expected mass function assuming a CMB-...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Joaquim Iguaz Juan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SciPost 2023-07-01
Series:SciPost Physics Proceedings
Online Access:https://scipost.org/SciPostPhysProc.12.052
Description
Summary:The best-motivated scenario for a sizable primordial black hole (PBH) contribution to the LIGO/Virgo binary black hole mergers invokes the QCD phase transition, which naturally enhances the probability to form PBH with masses of stellar scale. We reconsider the expected mass function assuming a CMB-like primordial spectrum and associated not only to the QCD phase transition proper, but also the $e^{+}e^{-}$ annihilation process, and analyze the constraints on this scenario from a number of observations. We find that the scenario is not viable, unless an ad hoc mass evolution for the PBH mass function and a cutoff in power-spectrum very close to the QCD scale are introduced by hand.
ISSN:2666-4003