Primordial black holes’ dark dresses: Roads towards a discovery and possible implications

2019-05-21
11:40
UB
Seminari DAM (724) (ICCUB building, UB Campus)
Primordial black holes’ dark dresses: Roads towards a discovery and possible implications
The birth of gravitational wave astronomy has been a major recent breakthrough in physics. The recent discovery of gravitational wave signals from merger events of massive binary-black-hole (BBH) systems have prompted a renewed debate in the scientific community about the existence of primordial black holes of O(1-100) solar masses.

These objects may have formed in the early Universe and could constitute a significant portion of the elusive dark matter that, according to standard cosmology, makes up the majority of the matter content in the universe.

I will review the most recent development of this field, with particular focus on the mass window of interest for the LIGO and Virgo gravitational observatories. I will discuss in detail the most updated computations of the expected merger rate of a hypothetical subdominant population of primordial black holes, taking into account the impact of the dark matter “dresses” that are expected to form around these objects.

I will also present the prospects of discovery with forthcoming radio facilities such as SKA and ngVLA, and the possible consequences of such a discovery on the existence of other dark matter candidates.

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