Investigating primordial black hole accretion through cosmic optical depth

Abstract

Primordial black holes (PBH) accretion in the late Universe can lead to significant mass growth. A larger mass further accelerates the accretion radiation output for PBHs with initial masses greater than one solar mass, potentially leading to a stringent energy-dumping constraint derived from observations of the cosmic microwave background. The energy injected via PBH accretion is capable of ionizing and heating the intergalactic medium (IGM), ultimately affecting the optical depth of cosmic reionization and the 21-cm signal. This work investigates primordial black hole mass growth using the Bondi-Hoyle accretion model and accounts for additional ionization and heating induced by PBHs. We derive stringent PBH abundance limits using an upper limit on optical depth set by Planck 2018 CMB measurements. We find that accretion growth significantly strengthens late-time observational constraints for primordial black holes with initial masses ranging from several solar masses up to 104 solar masses. The PBH fraction of the Universe's unobserved mass content can be constrained to fPBH, ini ∼ 10-2 to 10-7 in this mass range, and when accounting for mass evolution our constraints can be strengthened by up to one order of magnitude. In addition, we show that PBH mass growth will lead to an observable impact on the predicted hydrogen 21-cm brightness temperature.