Gravothermalizing into primordial black holes, boson stars, and cannibal stars

Abstract

Very little is known about the cosmological history from after the end of inflation until Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. Various well-motivated models predict that the universe could have undergone a period of matter domination in this early epoch. We demonstrate that if the particles causing matter domination have self-interactions, they can form halos that undergo a gravothermal collapse. We thus propose a novel scenario for the formation of primordial black holes, which in particular can lie within the asteroid-mass range. We also find that it is not only black holes that can form in the aftermath of a gravothermal evolution. We show that number-changing annihilations of the particles can create sufficient heat to halt the gravothermal evolution, thus forming a ``cannibal star''. Likewise, the pressure from the particle's repulsive self-interactions can form a boson star during a gravothermal evolution. Thus, our study highlights that structure formation in the early universe can have a rich phenomenology.

Comments: 22 pages + appendices, and 4 figures; matches version accepted in PRD