Primordial Black Holes and Gravitational Waves in Multi-Axion-Chern-Simons Inflation

Abstract

We study aspects of inflation and the possibility of enhanced production of primordial black holes (PBHs) and gravitational waves (GWs) in a string-inspired model of two axion fields coupled to Chern-Simons gravity, which results in a running-vacuum-model inflation. Fluctuations of the scale invariant spectrum, consistent with the cosmological data, are provided in this model by world-sheet (non-perturbative) instanton terms of the axion field arising from string compactification. As a result of such modulations, there is an enhanced production of PBHs and GWs in such cosmologies, which may lead to observable in principle patterns in the profile of GWs during the radiation era. Moreover, we demonstrate that the PBHs may provide a significant amount of Dark Matter in this Universe. For comparison, we also discuss a two-stage inflation cosmological model of conventional stringinspired axion monodromy, involving again two axion fields. The resulting modifications imprinted on the GWs spectra between these two classes of models are distinct, and can, in principle, be distinguished by future interferometers.