A new paradigm shift: Massive Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter

by Juan García Bellido (IFT-UAM/CSIC Madrid)

Friday 26 May 2017, 12:00 → 13:00 Europe/Madrid

IFAE Seminar room (IFAE)

Twenty years ago, we predicted that massive primordial black holes (PBH) would form via the gravitational collapse of radiation and matter associated with high peaks in the spectrum of curvature fluctuations, and that they could constitute all of the dark matter today. In 2015, we predicted the clustering and mass distribution of PBH, which peaks at 50 Msun, and whose high-mass tails could be responsible for the seeds of all galaxies. Since then, LIGO has detected gravitational waves from at least three merging events of very massive black hole binaries. We propose that they are PBH, and predict that within 10 years, an array of GW detectors (i.e. LIGO, VIRGO, KAGRA, INDIGO, etc.) could be used to determine the mass and spin distribution of PBH dark matter with 10% accuracy. Thus, gravitational wave astronomy could be responsible for a new paradigm shift in the understanding of the nature of dark matter.