LIGO Seminar

Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo have revealed a rich population of binary black holes and neutron stars, and this has revived interest in the possibility of sub-solar mass ultracompact objects. Since astrophysical processes are not expected to produce ultracompact objects below one solar mass, the detection of a sub-solar mass ultracompact object could therefore be an indication of new physics. It has been proposed that low mass black holes could be formed primordially through density fluctuations in the early Universe, or via particulate dark matter with nuclear interactions and/or 'dark' electromagnetism. We discuss results for the first Advanced LIGO searches for sub-solar mass ultracompact objects, as well as an interpretation of these results in the context of primordial black holes as a component of dark matter.