Primordial black hole formation in nonminimal curvaton scenarios

In the curvaton scenario, the curvature perturbation is generated after inflation at the curvaton decay, which may have a prominent non-Gaussian effect. For a model with a nontrivial kinetic term, an enhanced curvature perturbation on a small scale can be realized, which can lead to copious production of primordial black holes (PBHs) and induce secondary gravitational waves (GWs). Using the probability distribution function (PDF) which takes full nonlinear effects into account, we calculate the PBH formation. We find that under the assumption that thus formed PBHs would not overclose the Universe, the non-Gaussianity of the curvature perturbation can be well-approximated by the local quadratic form, which can be used to calculate the induced GWs. In this model the limit of large non-Gaussianity can be reached when the curvaton energy fraction r is small at the moment of curvaton decay. We also show that in the r -> 1 limit the PDF is similar to that of ultraslow-roll inflation.