Search for the Hawking radiation of primordial black holes: prospective sensitivity of LHAASO

Abstract

Primordial black holes (PBHs), more generally, BHs, undergo evaporation and, in principle, will end their lives in bursts of very high-energy gamma rays. The notable aspect of the PBHs with an initial mass of $\sim 10^{14}$ g is that they are expected to end their lives today. In this work, we assess the potential sensitivity of the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) in detecting the local burst rate density of PBHs. Our results suggest that LHAASO is capable of probing for PBH bursts within a proximity of $\sim 0.1$ pc from the Sun, measuring a local burst rate density of $\sim$ 1200 (or 700)${\mathrm{pc}}^{-3}{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$ with $99\%$ confidence during a 3-year (or 5-year) observational campaign. This level of sensitivity surpasses the most rigorous observational constraint provided by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) by an order of magnitude. Additionally, we propose data analysis strategies for LHAASO to optimize the search for PBHs and reach its potential detection limits.

10 pages, 2 figures; accepted by JCAP

References in corpus (4)

• The merger rate of primordial-black-hole binaries
• Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter Candidates
• Searching for Very-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Bursts from Evaporating Primordial Black Holes
• Search for the evaporation of primordial black holes with H.E.S.S

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• Ultra-High-Energy Neutrinos from Primordial Black Holes
• Primordial regular black holes as all the dark matter. III. Covariant canonical quantum gravity models
• Prospective sensitivity of CTAO on detection of evaporating primordial black holes
• Superradiant dark matter production from primordial black holes: Impact of multiple modes and gravitational wave emission