Primordial Black Holes and Quantum Effects

Abstract

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are of special interest because of the crucial role of quantum effects in their formation and evaporation. This means that they provide a unique probe of the early universe, high-energy physics and quantum gravity. We highlight some recent developments in the subject, including improved limits on the fraction of the Universe going into evaporating PBHs in the mass range $10^9-10^{17}$ g and the possibility of using PBHs to probe a cosmological bounce.

arXiv comment8 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Proceedings of 2013 Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics, eds. P. Nicolini, J. Mureika, M. Kaminski, M. Bleicher