Dark matter from phase transition generated PBH evaporation with gravitational waves signatures

Abstract

We study the possibility of generating dark matter (DM) purely from ultra-light primordial black hole (PBH) evaporation with the latter being produced from a first order phase transition (FOPT) in the early Universe. If such ultra-light PBH leads to an early matter domination, it can give rise to a doubly peaked gravitational wave (GW) spectrum in Hz-kHz ballpark with the low frequency peak generated from PBH density fluctuations being within near future experimental sensitivity. In the sub-dominant PBH regime, the FOPT generated GW spectrum comes within sensitivity due to absence of entropy dilution. In both the regimes, PBH mass from a few kg can be probed by GW experiments like BBO, ET, CE, UDECIGO etc. while DM mass gets restricted to the superheavy ballpark in the PBH dominance case. Apart from distinct DM mass ranges in the two scenarios, GW observations can differentiate by measuring their distinct spectral shapes.

Comments: 31 pages, 6 captioned figures, matches version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D