Improved Theoretical Predictions of Microlensing Rates for the Detection of Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter

Understand

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) remain a Dark Matter (DM) candidate of the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

• Previously, we proposed a new method of constraining the remaining PBH DM mass range using microlensing of stars monitored by NASA's Kepler mission.
• We improve this analysis using a more accurate treatment of the population of the Kepler source stars, their variability and limb-darkening.
• We extend the theoretically detectable PBH DM mass range down to $2\times10^{-10} M_\sun$, two orders of magnitude below current limits and one third order of magnitude below our previous estimate.