Pulsar timing can constrain primordial black holes in the LIGO mass window

Abstract

The recent discovery of gravitational waves from merging black holes has generated interest in primordial black holes as a possible component of the dark matter. In this paper, we show that pulsar timing may soon have sufficient data to constrain $1$-$1000M_{\odot }$ primordial black holes via the non-detection of a third-order Shapiro time delay as the black holes move around the Galactic halo. We present the results of a Monte Carlo simulation which suggests that future data from known pulsars may be capable of constraining the PBH density more stringently than other existing methods in the mass range ~1-30$M_{\odot }$. We find that timing new pulsars discovered using the proposed Square Kilometre Array may constrain primordial black holes in this mass range to comprise less than ~1-10% of the dark matter.

arXiv comment6 pages, 2 figures; published in PRD with minor revision (no changes to results)

References in corpus (46)

• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Did LIGO detect dark matter?
• Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
• Limits on the Macho Content of the Galactic Halo from the EROS-2 Survey of the Magellanic Clouds
• Primordial Black Hole Scenario for the Gravitational-Wave Event GW150914
• Density Perturbations and Black Hole Formation in Hybrid Inflation
• The clustering of massive Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter: measuring their mass distribution with Advanced LIGO
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Project
• Massive Primordial Black Holes from Hybrid Inflation as Dark Matter and the seeds of Galaxies
• The Local Dark Matter Density
• Gravitational wave background as a probe of the primordial black hole abundance
• Effect of Primordial Black Holes on the Cosmic Microwave Background and Cosmological Parameter Estimates
• Dark matter production in the early Universe: beyond the thermal WIMP paradigm
• MACHO Project Limits on Black Hole Dark Matter in the 1-30 Solar Mass Range
• Constraints on MACHO Dark Matter from Compact Stellar Systems in Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies
• Assessing the Role of Spin Noise in the Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars
• Galactic Searches for Dark Matter
• Lensing of Fast Radio Bursts as a Probe of Compact Dark Matter
• European Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Continuous Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Observations, Arrival Time Measurements, and Analysis of 37 Millisecond Pulsars
• Microlensing and dynamical constraints on primordial black hole dark matter with an extended mass function
• The OGLE View of Microlensing towards the Magellanic Clouds. IV. OGLE-III SMC Data and Final Conclusions on MACHOs
• Development of a pulsar-based timescale
• LIGO gravitational wave detection, primordial black holes and the near-IR cosmic infrared background anisotropies
• Primordial black hole formation from an axion-like curvaton model
• The end of the MACHO era- revisited: new limits on MACHO masses from halo wide binaries
• The End of the MACHO Era: Limits on Halo Dark Matter from Stellar Halo Wide Binaries
• Constraints on the induced gravitational wave background from primordial black holes
• On the Reported Death of the MACHO Era
• An all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array data set
• NANOGrav Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Circular Orbits
• Probing Dark Matter Substructure with Pulsar Timing
• Investigating dark matter substructure with pulsar timing: I. Constraints on ultracompact minihalos
• PSR J1024-0719: A Millisecond Pulsar in an Unusual Long-Period Orbit
• Prospects for Detecting Dark Matter Halo Substructure with Pulsar Timing
• Pulsar timing irregularities and the imprint of magnetic field evolution
• Searching for primordial black hole dark matter with pulsar timing arrays
• Constraints on Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Continuous Gravitational Waves
• Contribution of the hybrid inflation waterfall to the primordial curvature perturbation
• Enhanced exploration for primordial black holes using pulsar timing arrays
• The Galactic One-Way Shapiro Delay to PSR B1937+21
• On the Possibility of Observing the Shapiro Effect for Pulsars in Globular Clusters
• Can the Known Millisecond Pulsars Help in the Detection of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes at the Centers of Globular Clusters?

Cited by in corpus (55)

• Constraints on Primordial Black Holes
• Primordial Black Holes - Perspectives in Gravitational Wave Astronomy -
• Primordial Black Holes as a dark matter candidate
• Cosmic microwave background limits on accreting primordial black holes
• The merger rate of primordial-black-hole binaries
• Primordial black hole constraints for extended mass functions
• Constraints on Earth-mass primordial black holes from OGLE 5-year microlensing events
• CMB bounds on disk-accreting massive Primordial Black Holes
• Inflationary primordial black holes for the LIGO gravitational wave events and pulsar timing array experiments
• Limits on stellar-mass compact objects as dark matter from gravitational lensing of type Ia supernovae
• Stochastic gravitational waves associated with the formation of primordial black holes
• Voyager 1 $e^{\pm }$ Further Constrain Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
• Clusters of primordial black holes
• Constraints on the Primordial Black Hole Abundance from the First Advanced LIGO Observation Run Using the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Pulsar Timing Array Constraints on Primordial Black Holes with NANOGrav 11-Year Data Set
• Early Structure Formation in $\Lambda$PBH Cosmologies
• Primordial Black Holes from Polynomial Potentials in Single Field Inflation
• Merger Rate Distribution of Primordial-Black-Hole Binaries
• Constraints on Primordial Black Holes with Extended Mass Functions
• Pulsar Timing Probes of Primordial Black Holes and Subhalos
• The Black Hole Mass Function from Gravitational Wave Measurements
• Black hole formation from a general quadratic action for inflationary primordial fluctuations
• On the merger rate of primordial black holes: effects of nearest neighbours distribution and clustering
• Gravitational wave probes of dark matter: challenges and opportunities
• Inflationary theory and pulsar timing investigations of primordial black holes and gravitational waves
• Non-thermal Production of Dark Matter from Primordial Black Holes
• EFT Compatible PBHs: Effective Spawning of the Seeds for Primordial Black Holes during Inflation
• Effects of the surrounding primordial black holes on the merger rate of primordial black hole binaries
• Constraints on the primordial curvature power spectrum from primordial black holes
• Probing Primordial-Black-Hole Dark Matter with Gravitational Waves
• Constraints on millicharged dark matter and axion-like particles from timing of radio waves
• Looking at cosmic near-infrared background radiation anisotropies
• Observability of Dark Matter Substructure with Pulsar Timing Correlations
• The clustering dynamics of primordial black boles in $N$-body simulations
• Probing Small-Scale Power Spectra with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Primordial-black-hole mergers in dark-matter spikes
• Lensing of Fast Radio Bursts by Binaries to Probe Compact Dark Matter
• Lensing of fast radio bursts: future constraints on primordial black hole density with an extended mass function and a new probe of exotic compact fermion and boson stars
• Looking for MACHOs in the Spectra of Fast Radio Bursts
• First Results on Dark Matter Substructure from Astrometric Weak Lensing
• LIGO/Virgo black holes and dark matter: The effect of spatial clustering
• Cosmological implications of Primordial Black Holes
• Bayesian Forecasts for Dark Matter Substructure Searches with Mock Pulsar Timing Data
• Milky Way Accelerometry via Millisecond Pulsar Timing
• Observational Constraints on the Primordial Curvature Power Spectrum
• Detecting the gravitational wave background from primordial black hole dark matter
• Astrophysical Observations of a Dark Matter-Baryon Fifth Force
• Dark Matter Microhalos in the Solar Neighborhood: Pulsar Timing Signatures of Early Matter Domination
• Astrometric Gravitational-Wave Detection via Stellar Interferometry
• Searching for Dark Clumps with Gravitational-Wave Detectors
• Measuring the spectral running from cosmic microwave background and primordial black holes
• Detecting Dark Compact Objects in Gaia DR4: A Data Analysis Pipeline for Transient Astrometric Lensing Searches
• Detecting gravitational signatures of dark matter with atom gradiometers
• Probing Dark Matter Clumps, Strings and Domain Walls with Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Physics beyond the Standard Model with the DSA-2000