Sensitivity of HAWC to Primordial Black Hole Bursts

Understand

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are black holes that may have been created in the early Universe and could be as large as supermassive black holes or as small as the Planck scale.

• It is believed that a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will thermally emit all species of fundamental particles.
• PBHs with initial masses of 5.0 x 10^14 g 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 the high end of the PBH gamma-ray burst spectrum.