Milagro Limits and HAWC Sensitivity for the Rate-Density of Evaporating Primordial Black Holes

Understand

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are gravitationally collapsed objects that may have been created by density fluctuations in the early universe and could have arbitrarily small masses down to the Planck scale.

• Hawking showed that due to quantum effects, a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will emit all species of fundamental particles thermally.
• PBHs with initial masses of ~5.0 x 10^14 g should be expiring in the present epoch with bursts of high-energy particles, including gamma radiation in the GeV - TeV energy range.
• The Milagro high energy observatory, which operated from 2000 to 2008, is sensitive to the high end of the PBH evaporation gamma-ray spectrum.