Dark matter from eternal inflation ⚡ экспресс
It is proposed that all dark matter can arise because cosmological inflation is eternal: regions that at the end of primordial accelerated expansion never underwent reheating but continue to inflate forever manifest as primordial black holes in the observable Universe. This mechanism yields an abundance of primordial black holes exceeding the standard one from gravitational collapse of large inhomogeneities in the radiation-dominated phase. The model predicts a broad spectrum of curvature perturbations and a flat stochastic background of gravitational waves with amplitude Ω_GW h² ≃ 10⁻¹⁰ up to frequencies of order millihertz.
The universe began with the Big Bang and subsequent inflation—a rapid expansion. Alan Guth suggested that in some regions this growth never stopped. They remained ‘underbaked’ pockets of eternal expansion forever. In our space, such regions manifested as primordial black holes—clumps of unimaginable density. Their collective mass is dark matter—the invisible scaffolding holding galaxies together.
The process resembled dough rising: while most of it smoothed into a uniform loaf, separate bubbles stayed inside, never merging with the crumb. These inclusions are the black holes. Some are smaller than an atom yet weigh as much as a mountain. Their birth shook the very fabric of reality, generating a faint but pervasive hum—gravitational waves. This echo of the Big Bang can still be caught by sensitive detectors of the future.
🎯 A single primordial black hole can be smaller than an atom but weigh as much as a mountain.