Primordial black holes as dark matter candidates

Abstract

We review the formation and evaporation of primordial black holes (PBHs) and their possible contribution to dark matter. Various constraints suggest they could only provide most of it in the mass windows 10^{17}\;1017 – 10^{23}\;1023g or 1010 – 10^2\;M_{\odot}102M⊙, with the last possibility perhaps being suggested by the LIGO/Virgo observations. However, PBHs could have important consequences even if they have a low cosmological density. Sufficiently large ones might generate cosmic structures and provide seeds for the supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei. Planck-mass relics of PBH evaporations or stupendously large black holes bigger than 10^{12}\;M_{\odot}1012M⊙ could also be an interesting dark component.