arXiv subjects

Xin-Chen He

Publications and source records attributed to Xin-Chen He.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Universal Suppression of Gravitational Waves from Black Hole Evaporation Dynamics

Evaporating black holes can leave distinct imprints on gravitational wave (GW) backgrounds. We show that black hole populations with finite width mass distributions exhibit a universal late time evolution governed by the evaporation dynamics rather than the details of the initial mass distribution, leading to a characteristic power law suppression of the induced GWs. We demonstrate this for a broad class of mass functions in primordial black hole (PBH) scenarios featuring an early Universe matter-dominated era, and identify the suppression of PBH-induced GWs found for critical collapse distributions as a manifestation of this general phenomenon. Our results establish a direct connection between the asymptotic GW spectrum and the underlying law of black hole evaporation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Gravitational waves from primordial black hole isocurvature: the effect of non-Gaussianities

Ultra-light primordial black holes (PBHs) with masses $M_{\rm PBH}<5\times 10^8\mathrm{g}$ can dominate transiently the energy budget of the Universe and reheat the Universe through their evaporation taking place before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. The isocurvature energy density fluctuations associated to the inhomogeneous distribution of a population of such PBHs can induce an abundant production of GWs due to second-order gravitational effects. In this work, we discuss the effect of primordial non-Gaussianity on the clustering properties of PBHs and study the effect of a clustered PBH population on the spectral shape of the aforementioned induced GW signal. In particular, focusing on local-type non-Gaussianity we find a double-peaked GW signal with the amplitude of the low-frequency peak being proportional to the square of the non-Gaussian parameter $τ_\mathrm{NL}$. Remarkably, depending on the PBH mass $M_{\rm PBH}$ and the initial abundance of PBHs at formation time, i.e. $Ω_\mathrm{PBH,f}$, this double-peaked GW signal can lie well within the frequency bands of forthcoming GW detectors, namely LISA, ET, SKA and BBO, hence rendering this signal falsifiable by GW experiments and promoting it as a novel portal probing the primordial non-Gaussianity.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

New probe of non-Gaussianities with primordial black hole induced gravitational waves

We propose a new probe of primordial non-Gaussianities (NGs) through the observation of gravitational waves (GWs) induced by ultra-light ($M_{\text{PBH}}< 10^{9}\rm{g}$) primordial black holes (PBHs). Interestingly enough, the existence of primordial NG can leave imprints on the clustering properties of PBHs and the spectral shape of induced GW signals. Focusing on a scale-dependent local-type NG, we identify a distinct double-peaked GW energy spectrum that, contingent upon $M_{\text{PBH}}$ and the abundance of PBHs at the time of formation, denoted as $Ω_\mathrm{PBH,f}$, may fall into the frequency bands of upcoming GW observatories, including LISA, ET, SKA, and BBO. Thus, such a signal can serve as a novel portal for probing primordial NGs. Intriguingly, combining BBN bounds on the GW amplitude, we find for the first time the joint limit on the product of the effective non-linearity parameter for the primordial tri-spectrum, denoted by $\barτ_\mathrm{NL}$, and the primordial curvature perturbation power spectrum $\mathcal{P}_{\cal R}(k)$, which reads as $\barτ_\mathrm{NL} \mathcal{P}_{\cal R}(k) < 4\times 10^{-20} Ω^{-17/9}_\mathrm{PBH,f} \left( \frac{M_{\rm PBH}}{10^4\mathrm{g}} \right)^{-17/9}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Limits on scalar-induced gravitational waves from the stochastic background by pulsar timing array observations

Recently, the NANOGrav, PPTA, EPTA, and CPTA collaborations independently reported their evidence of the Stochastic Gravitational Waves Background (SGWB). While the inferred gravitational-wave background amplitude and spectrum are consistent with astrophysical expectations for a signal from the population of supermassive black-hole binaries (SMBHBs), the search for new physics remains plausible in this observational window. In this work, we explore the possibility of explaining such a signal by the scalar-induced gravitational waves (IGWs) in the very early universe. We use a parameterized broken power-law function as a general description of the energy spectrum of the SGWB and fit it to the new results of NANOGrav, PPTA and EPTA. We find that this approach can put constraints on the parameters of IGW energy spectrum and further yield restrictions on various inflation models that may produce primordial black holes (PBHs) in the early universe, which is also expected to be examined by the forthcoming space-based GW experiments.

gr-qc↗