Primordial Black Holes from Conformal Higgs

Abstract

Scale-invariant extensions of the electroweak theory are not only attractive because they can dynamically generate the weak scale, but also due to their role in facilitating supercooled first-order phase transitions. We study the minimal scale-invariant $U(1{)}_{\mathrm{D}}$ extension of the standard model and show that Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) can be abundantly produced. The mass of these PBHs is bounded from above by that of the moon due to QCD catalysis limiting the amount of supercooling. Lunar-mass PBHs, which are produced for dark Higgs vev $v_{\varphi }\simeq 20\mathrm{TeV}$, correspond to the best likelihood to explain the HSC lensing anomaly. For $v_{\varphi }\gtrsim 400\mathrm{TeV}$, the model can explain hundred per cent of dark matter. At even larger hierarchy of scales, it can contribute to the $511\mathrm{keV}$ line. While the gravitational wave (GW) signal produced by the HSC anomaly interpretation is large and detectable by LISA above astrophysical foreground, the dark matter interpretation in terms of PBHs can not be entirely probed by future GW detection. This is due to the dilution of the signal by the entropy injected during the decay of the long-lived $U(1{)}_{\mathrm{D}}$ scalar. This extended lifetime is a natural consequence of the large hierarchy of scales.

Comments: Check of validity of beta-parameterisation of the tunnelling rate, discussions and Refs added. Software program to calculate bounce action and nucleation temperature available on github (https://github.com/YannGou/CCBounce.git). Matches version published in PLB