Notes on primordial black hole origin for thermal gamma-ray bursts

Abstract

Recently, an alleged plausible astrophysical scenario was proposed for the production of observed thermal gamma-ray bursts, via Hawking radiation emitted from a primordial black hole (PBH) freely falling into a more massive black hole. Here the implausibility of that scenario is demonstrated, and the key flaws in that paper's calculations and assumptions are elucidated through a discussion of some common misconceptions concerning black holes and general relativity. In particular, the predicted radiance observed from Earth is found to be orders of magnitude lower than what any instrument could detect, and the PBH-BH merger signature would be completely overwhelmed by the background Hawking signature from free PBHs.

6 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (8)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• The Supernova -- Gamma-Ray Burst Connection
• Cosmic microwave background limits on accreting primordial black holes
• The Local Dark Matter Density
• WIMP Annihilation and Cooling of Neutron Stars
• A brief review on primordial black holes as dark matter
• Supernova 2006aj and the associated X-Ray Flash 060218
• Crater Morphology of Primordial Black Hole Impacts