Constraining the local burst rate density of primordial black holes with HAWC

• Published in: Journal of cosmology and astroparticle physics Vol. 2020; no. 4; p. 26
• Main Authors: Albert, A., Alfaro, R., Alvarez, C., Arteaga-Velázquez, J.C., Arunbabu, K.P., Rojas, D. Avila, Solares, H.A. Ayala, Baghmanyan, V., Belmont-Moreno, E., BenZvi, S.Y., Brisbois, C., Caballero-Mora, K.S., Capistrán, T., Carramiñana, A., Casanova, S., Cotti, U., Cotzomi, J., Fuente, E. De la, de León, C., Dingus, B.L., DuVernois, M.A., Díaz-Vélez, J.C., Ellsworth, R.W., Engel, K.L., Espinoza, C., Fleischhack, H., Fraija, N., Galván-Gámez, A., García-González, J.A., Garfias, F., González, M.M., Goodman, J.A., Harding, J.P., Hernandez, S., Hona, B., Huang, D., Hueyotl-Zahuantitla, F., Hüntemeyer, P., Iriarte, A., Joshi, V., Lara, A., Lee, W.H., Vargas, H. León, Linnemann, J.T., Longinotti, A.L., Luis-Raya, G., Lundeen, J., López-Coto, R., Malone, K., Marinelli, S.S., Martinez, O., Martinez-Castellanos, I., Martínez-Castro, J., Martínez-Huerta, H., Matthews, J.A., Miranda-Romagnoli, P., Morales-Soto, J.A., Moreno, E., Mostafá, M., Nayerhoda, A., Nellen, L., Newbold, M., Nisa, M.U., Noriega-Papaqui, R., Peisker, A., Pérez-Pérez, E.G., Rho, C.D., Rivière, C., Rosa-González, D., Rosenberg, M., Salazar, H., Greus, F. Salesa, Sandoval, A., Schneider, M., Sinnis, G., Smith, A.J., Springer, R.W., Tabachnick, E., Tanner, M., Tibolla, O., Tollefson, K., Torres, I., Torres-Escobedo, R., Weisgarber, T., Wood, J., Zepeda, A., Zhou, H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.04.2020
• Subjects: Black holes; Bursts; Density; Electromagnetic measurement; Elementary particles; Field of view; Gamma rays; Hawking radiation; High altitude; Observatories
• ISSN: 1475-7516; 1475-7516
• DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2020/04/026

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) may have been created by density fluctuations in the early Universe and could be as massive as >109 solar masses or as small as the Planck mass. It has been postulated that a black hole has a temperature inversely-proportional to its mass and will thermally emit all species of fundamental particles via Hawking Radiation. PBHs with initial masses of ∼5×1014 g (approximately one gigaton) should be expiring today with bursts of high-energy gamma radiation in the GeV-TeV energy range. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is sensitive to gamma rays with energies of ∼300 GeV to past 100 TeV, which corresponds to the high end of the PBH burst spectrum. With its large instantaneous field-of-view of ∼2 sr and a duty cycle over 95%, the HAWC Observatory is well suited to perform an all-sky search for PBH bursts. We conducted a search using 959 days of HAWC data and exclude the local PBH burst rate density above 3400pc−3yr−1 at 99% confidence, the strongest limit on the local PBH burst rate density from any existing electromagnetic measurement.