New thresholds for Primordial Black Hole formation during the QCD phase transition

Abstract

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) might have formed in the early Universe as a consequence of the collapse of density fluctuations with an amplitude above a critical value ${\delta }_c$: the formation threshold. Although for a radiation-dominated Universe ${\delta }_c$ remains constant, if the Universe experiences some dust-like phases (e.g. phase transitions) ${\delta }_c$ might decrease, improving the chances of PBH formation. We studied the evolution of ${\delta }_c$ during the QCD phase transition epoch within three different models: Bag Model (BM), Lattice Fit Model (LFM), and Crossover Model (CM). We found that the reduction on the background value of ${\delta }_c$ can be as high as $77\%$ (BM), which might imply a $\sim 10^{-10}$ probability of PBHs forming at the QCD epoch.

11 pages, 8 figures and 3 tables