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Charting the Universe with Primordial Black Holes: From Planetary to Supermassive

Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) offer a particularly rich window onto the early Universe: the same large primordial curvature perturbations that collapse to form PBHs also generate a stochastic background of scalar-induced gravitational waves (SIGWs), while the PBHs themselves can later form binaries and merge, producing gravitational-wave signals in complementary frequency bands. In this talk, I will explore how these signals can be connected across different experiments to probe PBHs over a vast range of masses. I will begin with planetary-mass PBHs, whose formation is associated with micro-Hz SIGWs that could be targeted by future Lunar and Satellite Laser Ranging measurements. I will then turn to sub-solar PBHs, discussing how mergers in ground-based interferometers and a nano-Hz SIGW background observed by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) can arise from a common primordial origin. Finally, I will switch gears to supermassive PBHs, whose binaries can produce chirping signals in PTAs, but their abundance is strongly constrained by an effective field theory description of the high-redshift Lyman-alpha forest.

Host: David Curtin
Event series  THEP Events