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arXiv · 1912.02682

Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter through Higgs Criticality

Samuel Passaglia·Wayne Hu·Hayato Motohashi
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Abstract

We study the dynamics of a spectator Higgs field which stochastically evolves during inflation onto near-critical trajectories on the edge of a runaway instability. We show that its fluctuations do not produce primordial black holes (PBHs) in sufficient abundance to be the dark matter, nor do they produce significant second-order gravitational waves. First we show that the Higgs produces larger fluctuations on CMB scales than on PBH scales, itself a no-go for a viable PBH scenario. Then we track the superhorizon perturbations nonlinearly through reheating using the delta N formalism to show that they are not converted to large curvature fluctuations. Our conclusions hold regardless of any fine-tuning of the Higgs field for both the Standard Model Higgs and for Higgs potentials modified to prevent unbounded runaway.

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Samuel Passaglia, Wayne Hu, Hayato Motohashi. 2019-12-05. Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter through Higgs Criticality. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.101.123523

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