Are black holes over-produced during preheating?

Abstract

We provide a simple but robust argument that primordial black hole (PBH) production generically does {\em not} exceed astrophysical bounds during the resonant preheating phase after inflation. This conclusion is supported by fully nonlinear lattice simulations of various models in two and three dimensions which include rescattering but neglect metric perturbations. We examine the degree to which preheating amplifies density perturbations at the Hubble scale and show that at the end of the parametric resonance, power spectra are universal, with no memory of the power spectrum at the end of inflation. In addition we show how the probability distribution of density perturbations changes from exponential on very small scales to Gaussian when smoothed over the Hubble scale -- the crucial length for studies of primordial black hole formation -- hence justifying the standard assumption of Gaussianity.