English

Lunar Mass Black Holes from QCD Axion Cosmology

High Energy Physics - Theory 2018-06-19 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

In the QCD axion scenario, a network of domain walls bounded by cosmic strings fragments into pieces. As these fragments collapse, some of them will form black holes. With standard QCD axion parameters, the black holes will have lunar masses (Mbh108MM_{\rm bh} \sim 10^{-8}\, {\rm M}_\odot). Even though their number density is difficult to estimate, arguments suggest that they can constitute a reasonable fraction of the critical cosmological density.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1706.03868,
  title  = {Lunar Mass Black Holes from QCD Axion Cosmology},
  author = {Tanmay Vachaspati},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.03868},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

5 pages; 3 figures. Newer axion string simulations indicate fewer black holes in QCD axion cosmology. Black hole formation may still be of interest in variants of the QCD axion scenario