- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review D

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Primordial black holes from kinetic preheating

Peter Adshead1,2, Eve Currens3, and John T. Giblin, Jr.3,4,5

PDF

Phys. Rev. D 114, L021304 – Published 16 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pygg-bb7d

Abstract

We demonstrate that violent kinetic preheating following inflation can lead to the formation of black holes in the early Universe. In α-attractor models with derivative inflaton couplings, nonlinear amplification of field fluctuations drives large spacetime curvature and gravitational collapse shortly after inflation ends. Using fully general-relativistic lattice simulations, we find that these dynamics produce black holes with masses of order tens of grams at subhorizon scales, without requiring large primordial curvature perturbations. Although such micro black holes evaporate rapidly via Hawking radiation, their formation modifies the postinflationary equation of state and their evaporation can successfully reheat the Universe before big bang nucleosynthesis. These results identify kinetic preheating as a new, efficient channel for black-hole production.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (63)

  1. Alan H. Guth, The inflationary universe: A possible solution to the horizon and flatness problems, Phys. Rev. D 23, 347 (1981).
  2. Andreas Albrecht and Paul J. Steinhardt, Cosmology for grand unified theories with radiatively induced symmetry breaking, Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 1220 (1982).
  3. Andrei D. Linde, Chaotic inflation, Phys. Lett. 129B, 177 (1983).
  4. Alan H. Guth and S. Y. Pi, Fluctuations in the new inflationary universe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 1110 (1982).
  5. S. W. Hawking, The development of irregularities in a single bubble inflationary universe, Phys. Lett. 115B, 295 (1982).
  6. James M. Bardeen, Paul J. Steinhardt, and Michael S. Turner, Spontaneous creation of almost scale—free density perturbations in an inflationary universe, Phys. Rev. D 28, 679 (1983).
  7. Jennie H. Traschen and Robert H. Brandenberger, Particle production during out-of-equilibrium phase transitions, Phys. Rev. D 42, 2491 (1990).
  8. Y. Shtanov, Jennie H. Traschen, and Robert H. Brandenberger, Universe reheating after inflation, Phys. Rev. D 51, 5438 (1995).
  9. Lev Kofman, Andrei D. Linde, and Alexei A. Starobinsky, Reheating after inflation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 3195 (1994).
  10. Lev Kofman, Andrei D. Linde, and Alexei A. Starobinsky, Towards the theory of reheating after inflation, Phys. Rev. D 56, 3258 (1997).
  11. Patrick B. Greene, Lev Kofman, Andrei D. Linde, and Alexei A. Starobinsky, Structure of resonance in preheating after inflation, Phys. Rev. D 56, 6175 (1997).
  12. S. Y. Khlebnikov and I. I. Tkachev, Relic gravitational waves produced after preheating, Phys. Rev. D 56, 653 (1997).
  13. Richard Easther and Eugene A. Lim, Stochastic gravitational wave production after inflation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2006) 010.
  14. Richard Easther, John T. Giblin, Jr., and Eugene A. Lim, Gravitational wave production at the end of inflation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 221301 (2007).
  15. Juan Garcia-Bellido and Daniel G. Figueroa, A stochastic background of gravitational waves from hybrid preheating, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 061302 (2007).
  16. Juan Garcia-Bellido, Daniel G. Figueroa, and Alfonso Sastre, A gravitational wave background from reheating after hybrid inflation, Phys. Rev. D 77, 043517 (2008).
  17. Jean Francois Dufaux, Amanda Bergman, Gary N. Felder, Lev Kofman, and Jean-Philippe Uzan, Theory and numerics of gravitational waves from preheating after inflation, Phys. Rev. D 76, 123517 (2007).
  18. Richard Easther, John T. Giblin, and Eugene A. Lim, Gravitational waves from the end of inflation: Computational strategies, Phys. Rev. D 77, 103519 (2008).
  19. Laura Bethke, Daniel G. Figueroa, and Arttu Rajantie, On the anisotropy of the gravitational wave background from massless preheating, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2014) 047.
  20. Jean-Francois Dufaux, Daniel G. Figueroa, and Juan Garcia-Bellido, Gravitational waves from Abelian gauge fields and cosmic strings at preheating, Phys. Rev. D 82, 083518 (2010).
  21. Daniel G. Figueroa, Juan García-Bellido, and Francisco Torrentí, Gravitational wave production from the decay of the standard model Higgs field after inflation, Phys. Rev. D 93, 103521 (2016).
  22. Daniel G. Figueroa and Francisco Torrenti, Gravitational wave production from preheating: Parameter dependence, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2017) 057.
  23. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Timothy R. Scully, and Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, Gauge-preheating and the end of axion inflation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 12 (2015) 034.
  24. Jose Roberto Canivete Cuissa and Daniel G. Figueroa, Lattice formulation of axion inflation. Application to preheating, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2019) 002.
  25. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Jr., and Reid Pfaltzgraff-Carlson, Kinetic preheating after α-attractor inflation, Phys. Lett. B 856, 138928 (2024).
  26. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Timothy R. Scully, and Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, Magnetogenesis from axion inflation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2016) 039.
  27. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, and Zachary J. Weiner, Gravitational waves from gauge preheating, Phys. Rev. D 98, 4 (2018).
  28. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Mauro Pieroni, and Zachary J. Weiner, Constraining axion inflation with gravitational waves across 29 decades in frequency, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 17 (2020).
  29. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Mauro Pieroni, and Zachary J. Weiner, Constraining axion inflation with gravitational waves from preheating, Phys. Rev. D 101, 8 (2020).
  30. Zachary J. Weiner, Peter Adshead, and John T. Giblin, Constraining early dark energy with gravitational waves before recombination, Phys. Rev. D 103, L021301 (2021).
  31. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Ryn Grutkoski, and Zachary J. Weiner, Gauge preheating with full general relativity, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2024) 017.
  32. Peter Adshead, John T. Giblin, Jr., and Avery Tishue, Gravitational waves from kinetic preheating, Phys. Rev. D 110, 043536 (2024).
  33. Stephen Hawking, Gravitationally collapsed objects of very low mass, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 152, 75 (1971).
  34. Bernard J. Carr and S. W. Hawking, Black holes in the early universe, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 168, 399 (1974).
  35. Bernard J. Carr, The primordial black hole mass spectrum, Astrophys. J. 201, 1 (1975).
  36. Anne M. Green and Andrew R. Liddle, Constraints on the density perturbation spectrum from primordial black holes, Phys. Rev. D 56, 6166 (1997).
  37. Ilia Musco, John C. Miller, and Luciano Rezzolla, Computations of primordial black hole formation, Classical Quantum Gravity 22, 1405 (2005).
  38. Maxim Yu. Khlopov, Primordial black holes, Res. Astron. Astrophys. 10, 495 (2010).
  39. Ilia Musco and John C. Miller, Primordial black hole formation in the early universe: Critical behaviour and self-similarity, Classical Quantum Gravity 30, 145009 (2013).
  40. Tomohiro Harada, Chul-Moon Yoo, and Kazunori Kohri, Threshold of primordial black hole formation, Phys. Rev. D 88, 084051 (2013); 89, 029903(E) (2014).
  41. Juan Garcia-Bellido and Ester Ruiz Morales, Primordial black holes from single field models of inflation, Phys. Dark Universe 18, 47 (2017).
  42. Christian T. Byrnes, Philippa S. Cole, and Subodh P. Patil, Steepest growth of the power spectrum and primordial black holes, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2019) 028.
  43. Misao Sasaki, Teruaki Suyama, Takahiro Tanaka, and Shuichiro Yokoyama, Primordial black holes—perspectives in gravitational wave astronomy, Classical Quantum Gravity 35, 063001 (2018).
  44. Sukannya Bhattacharya, Subhendra Mohanty, and Priyank Parashari, Primordial black holes and gravitational waves in nonstandard cosmologies, Phys. Rev. D 102, 043522 (2020).
  45. Jérôme Martin, Theodoros Papanikolaou, and Vincent Vennin, Primordial black holes from the preheating instability in single-field inflation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2020) 024.
  46. John T. Giblin and Avery J. Tishue, Preheating in full general relativity, Phys. Rev. D 100, 063543 (2019).
  47. Hillary L. Child and John T. Giblin, Jr., Gravitational radiation from first-order phase transitions, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2012) 001.
  48. Thomas W. Baumgarte and Stuart L. Shapiro, On the numerical integration of Einstein’s field equations, Phys. Rev. D 59, 024007 (1998).
  49. Masaru Shibata and Takashi Nakamura, Evolution of three-dimensional gravitational waves: Harmonic slicing case, Phys. Rev. D 52, 5428 (1995).
  50. Renata Kallosh and Andrei Linde, Non-minimal inflationary attractors, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2013) 033.
  51. Andrei Linde, Dong-Gang Wang, Yvette Welling, Yusuke Yamada, and Ana Achúcarro, Hypernatural inflation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2018) 035.
  52. Thomas W. Baumgarte and Stuart L. Shapiro, Numerical Relativity: Solving Einstein’s Equations on the Computer (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2010).
  53. A. N. Staley, T. W. Baumgarte, J. D. Brown, B. Farris, and S. L. Shapiro, Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse in moving-puncture coordinates, Classical Quantum Gravity 29, 015003 (2012).
  54. Jonathan Thornburg, A fast apparent horizon finder for three-dimensional cartesian grids in numerical relativity, Classical Quantum Gravity 21, 743 (2004).
  55. S. W. Hawking, Particle creation by black holes, Commun. Math. Phys. 43, 199 (1975); 46, 206(E) (1976).
  56. Don N. Page, Particle emission rates from a black hole: Massless particles from an uncharged, nonrotating hole, Phys. Rev. D 13, 198 (1976).
  57. Richard Anantua, Richard Easther, and John T. Giblin, GUT-Scale primordial black holes: Consequences and constraints, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 111303 (2009).
  58. J. Luna Zagorac, Richard Easther, and Nikhil Padmanabhan, GUT-Scale primordial black holes: Mergers and gravitational waves, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2019) 052.
  59. Kevork N. Abazajian et al. (CMB-S4 Collaboration), CMB-S4 science book, first edition, arXiv:1610.02743.
  60. Kevork Abazajian et al., CMB-S4 science case, reference design, and project plan, arXiv:1907.04473.
  61. Kevork Abazajian et al. (CMB-S4 Collaboration), Snowmass 2021 CMB-S4 white paper, arXiv:2203.08024.
  62. Md Riajul Haque, Essodjolo Kpatcha, Debaprasad Maity, and Yann Mambrini, Primordial black hole reheating, Phys. Rev. D 108, 063523 (2023).
  63. Tomas Andrade et al., GRChombo: An adaptable numerical relativity code for fundamental physics, J. Open Source Softwaare 6, 3703 (2021).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 114, L021304– Published 16 July, 2026
  • Received 22 November 2025
  • Accepted 26 June 2026
Article part of CHORUS
Crossmark - Check for updates button

© 2026 American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation