Astrophysical constraints on primordial black holes in Brans-Dicke theory

We consider cosmological evolution in Brans-Dicke theory with a population of primordial black holes. Hawking radiation from the primordial black holes impacts various astrophysical processes during the evolution of the Universe. The accretion of radiation by the black holes in the radiation dominated era may be effective in imparting them a longer lifetime. We present a detailed study of how this affects various standard astrophysical constraints coming from the evaporation of primordial black holes. We analyze constraints from the present density of the Universe, the present photon spectrum, the distortion of the cosmic microwave background spectrum and also from processes affecting light element abundances after nucleosynthesis. We find that the constraints on the initial primordial black hole mass fractions are tightened with increased accretion efficiency.Comment: 15 page

Constraints on dark matter particles charged under a hidden gauge group from primordial black holes

In order to accommodate increasingly tighter observational constraints on dark matter, several models have been proposed recently in which dark matter particles are charged under some hidden gauge group. Hidden gauge charges are invisible for the standard model particles, hence such scenarios are very difficult to constrain directly. However black holes are sensitive to all gauge charges, whether they belong to the standard model or not. Here, we examine the constraints on the possible values of the dark matter particle mass and hidden gauge charge from the evolution of primordial black holes. We find that the existence of the primordial black holes with reasonable mass is incompatible with dark matter particles whose charge to mass ratio is of the order of one. For dark matter particles whose charge to mass ratio is much less than one, we are able to exclude only heavy dark matter in the mass range of 10^(11) GeV - 10^(16) GeV. Finally, for dark matter particles whose charge to mass ratio is much greater than one, there are no useful limits coming from primordial black holes.Comment: accepted for publication in JCA

Primordial black holes in braneworld cosmologies: astrophysical constraints

In two recent papers we explored the modifications to primordial black hole physics when one moves to the simplest braneworld model, Randall--Sundrum type II. Both the evaporation law and the cosmological evolution of the population can be modified, and additionally accretion of energy from the background can be dominant over evaporation at high energies. In this paper we present a detailed study of how this impacts upon various astrophysical constraints, analyzing constraints from the present density, from the present high-energy photon background radiation, from distortion of the microwave background spectrum, and from processes affecting light element abundances both during and after nucleosynthesis. Typically, the constraints on the formation rate of primordial black holes weaken as compared to the standard cosmology if black hole accretion is unimportant at high energies, but can be strengthened in the case of efficient accretion.Comment: 17 pages RevTeX4 file with three figures incorporated; final paper in series astro-ph/0205149 and astro-ph/0208299. Minor changes to match version accepted by Physical Review

A new calculation of the mass fraction of primordial black holes

We revisit the calculation of the abundance of primordial black holes (PBHs) formed from primordial density perturbations, using a formation criterion derived by Shibata and Sasaki which refers to a metric perturbation variable rather than the usual density contrast. We implement a derivation of the PBH abundance which uses peaks theory, and compare it to the standard calculation based on a Press-Schechter-like approach. We find that the two are in reasonable agreement if the Press-Schechter threshold is in the range Δth≃0.3 to 0.5, but advocate use of the peaks theory expression which is based on a sounder theoretical footing