Primordial Black Holes as a Probe of the Early Universe, High-Energy Physics and the Dark Side

Bernard Carr

October 22, 2009

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Abstract: Recent developments in the study of the formation and evaporation of primordial black holes (PBHs) will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on topics covered in some of my recent papers. It is still not clear whether PBHs formed but, if they did, they could provide a unique probe of the early Universe (inflation, non-Gaussian fluctuations), high energy physics (the formation of photospheres during the final stages of evaporation), dark matter (dynamical and lensing effects), dark energy (accretion of quintessence) and dark dimensions (mini black hole production at the LHC). Indeed the study of PBHs may place interesting constraints on the physics relevant to these areas even if they never existed.