Thermodynamical uncertainties for primordial black holes from cosmological phase transitions

Abstract

Strongly supercooled first-order phase transitions have been proposed as a primordial black hole (PBH) production mechanism. While previous works rely on simplified models with limited thermodynamic precision, we stress that reliable theoretical PBH predictions require precise nucleation dynamics within realistic extensions of the Standard Model. By employing high-temperature dimensional reduction and computing the one-loop fluctuation determinants, we provide a state-of-the-art thermodynamic analysis and obtain an universal lower bound on the transition timescale, $β/H_* \simeq 5$. Then, we estimate the corresponding PBH abundance for classically conformal gauge-Higgs theories. Accounting for constraints from successful percolation and QCD chiral symmetry breaking, the parameter space where PBHs are viable dark matter candidates is severely limited.