Formation and Evolution of Primordial Black Holes and Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe
Prof. Grant Mathews
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Notre Dame
We have shown [1] that within the natural warm inflationary paradigm (WNI) observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be satisfied without going beyond the Planck scale of the effective field theory. Moreover, WNI can inevitably provide perfect conditions for the production of primordial black holes (PBHs) in the golden window of black-hole mass range (10-16 10-11 Mยค) where it can account for all of the dark matter content of the universe while satisfying observational constraints. In this talk we review the constraints on from this form of dark matter to the gravitational wave background, and the prospects [3,4] for this PBH dark matter to merge into early seeds of galaxy formation and super-massive black holes at high redshift. We find that the best paradigm involves the capture of CDM by a seed black hole in dense nuclear clusters.
[1] M. Correa, M. R. Gangopadhyay, N. Jaman, G. J. Mathews, Phys. Lett. B835, 137510 (2022).
[2] M. Correa, M. R. Gangopadhyay, N. Jaman, G. J. Mathews, Phys. Rev. D, (2024).
[2] M. Correa, PhD Dissertation, UND (2025).
[3] A. Imai, G. J. Mathews, G. Tang, B. Zhang, arXiv: 2508.11846, ApJ Submitted
*Work at the University of Notre Dame supported by the U.S. DOE under nuclear theory grant DE-FG02-95-ER40934