Gravitational wave signatures of primordial black hole accretion during early matter domination

Abstract

We present a scenario in which primordial black holes (PBHs) form in a post-inflationary radiation-dominated (RD) phase and then experience significant accretion during a phase of early matter dominated (EMD). We show that PBH masses could grow by up to two orders of magnitude. Restricting to the linear perturbation regime, we compute the gravitational wave (GW) spectrum that features two peaks. The high-frequency peak is associated with the PBH formation in the RD phase, while the low-frequency peak is due to the sudden transition from EMD to the later, standard RD phase. We identify a PBH mass range where one or both peaks can be observed by a combination of different GW detectors. Finally, we show the signal-to-noise ratio of the total GW spectrum for PBHs in the asteroid mass window, where they could comprise the totality of dark matter.