New Venues in Formation and Detection of Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter

Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBH) provide an attractive non-particle dark matter (DM) candidate. I will discuss a novel PBH production mechanism that can appear generically in models with scalar fields. Recent re-evaluations of PBH constraints suggest that the open parameter space for PBHs to constitute all of dark matter is appreciably larger than previously thought. I will show how compact stars can serve as laboratories for probing it. The variety of resulting novel astrophysical signals are of particular interest to the vibrant field of multi-messenger astronomy. More-so, PBH-star interactions suggest an elegant resolution to some of the most puzzling questions in astrophysics, such as the origin of gold and other heavy elements.