The irrelevance of primordial black hole clustering in the LVK mass range
Abstract We show that in common inflationary models where primordial black holes are formed due to the collapse of sizeable inflationary perturbations, their initial spatial clustering beyond the Poisson distribution does not affect the binary mergers — including sub-solar primordial black holes — responsible for the gravitational waves detectable by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA. This is a consequence of the existing FIRAS CMB distortion constraints on the relevant scales. However, this conclusion may not hold for lighter masses potentially accessible by future gravitational wave observations and for multi-field inflation scenarios, where the curvature perturbation can acquire a large-scale modulation from a field that is not the primary source of the perturbation.
Authors
- Antonio J. Iovino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8531-5962)
- Vincent Desjacques (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2062-8172)
- Gabriele Franciolini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6892-9145)
- Hardi Veermäe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1845-1355)
- Antonio Walter Riotto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6948-0856)
- A. Ianniccari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9885-7737)
- Francesco Crescimbeni (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4088-5443)
- G. Perna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7364-1904)
- Davide Perrone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4430-4914)
Institutions
- University of Padua (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (IT)
- Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (IL)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Galileo Galilei Institute for Theoretical Physics (IT)
- National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (EE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma Tre (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma I (IT)
- European Organization for Nuclear Research (CH)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
- Published
- 2025-05-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/05/001
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 8.08