Primordial Black Holes and Quantum Effects

Understand

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are of special interest because of the crucial role of quantum effects in their formation and evaporation.

• This means that they provide a unique probe of the early universe, high-energy physics and quantum gravity.
• We highlight some recent developments in the subject, including improved limits on the fraction of the Universe going into evaporating PBHs in the mass range $10^{9} - 10^{17}$ g and the possibility of using PBHs to probe a cosmological bounce.