English

Stochastic constant-roll inflation and primordial black holes

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2023-08-07 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Stochastic inflation resolves primordial perturbations non-linearly, probing their probability distribution deep into its non-Gaussian tail. The strongest perturbations collapse into primordial black holes. In typical black-hole-producing single-field inflation, the strongest stochastic kicks occur during a period of constant roll. In this paper, I solve the stochastic constant-roll system, drawing the stochastic kicks from a numerically computed power spectrum, beyond the usual de Sitter approximation. The perturbation probability distribution is an analytical function of the integrated curvature power spectrum σk2\sigma_k^2 and the second slow-roll parameter ϵ2\epsilon_2. With a large ϵ2\epsilon_2, stochastic effects can reduce the height of the curvature power spectrum required to form asteroid mass black holes from 10210^{-2} to 10310^{-3}. I compare these results to studies with the non-stochastic ΔN\Delta N formalism.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.10903,
  title  = {Stochastic constant-roll inflation and primordial black holes},
  author = {Eemeli Tomberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.10903},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

11 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. v2: Corrected typos, expanded Section II. Matches published version