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  • Open Access

Reduced Gravitational Wave Signal Reopens the Ultralight Primordial Black Hole Window

Yann Gouttenoire1,2,*, Nicholas Leister2,†, and Pedro Schwaller2,‡

  • *Contact author: yann.gouttenoire@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: nleister@uni-mainz.de
  • ‡Contact author: pedro.schwaller@uni-mainz.de
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 181002 – Published 29 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bgv1-lpq7

Abstract

The hot big bang may have emerged from evaporation of primordial black holes (PBHs) lighter than 109  g. Standard monochromatic treatments predict nearly simultaneous evaporation, abrupt reheating, and a large poltergeist scalar-induced gravitational wave signal. We confront this expectation with the irreducible collapse mass tail predicted by general relativity, dfPBH/dlnM∝M3.78, which smooths reheating, suppresses the signal by orders of magnitude, and reopens the ultralight PBH window.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 181002– Published 29 October, 2026
  • Received 10 June 2026
  • Accepted 10 September 2026
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