Seven hints for primordial black hole dark matter

Sébastien Clesse, Juan García-Bellido

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Seven observations point towards the existence of primordial black holes (PBH), constituting the whole or an important fraction of the dark matter in the Universe: the mass and spin of black holes detected by Advanced LIGO/VIRGO, the detection of micro-lensing events of distant quasars and stars in M31, the non-detection of ultra-faint dwarf satellite galaxies with radius below 15 parsecs, evidences for core galactic dark matter profiles, the correlation between X-ray and infrared cosmic backgrounds, and the existence of super-massive black holes very early in the Universe's history. Some of these hints are newly identified and they are all intriguingly compatible with the re-constructed broad PBH mass distribution from LIGO events, peaking on PBH mass [Formula presented] and passing all other constraints on PBH abundances. PBH dark matter also provides a new mechanism to explain the mass-to-light ratios of dwarf galaxies, including the recent detection of a diffuse galaxy not dominated by dark matter. Finally we conjecture that between 0.1% and 1% of the events detected by LIGO will involve a PBH with a mass below the Chandrasekhar mass, which would unambiguously prove the existence of PBH.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)137-146
Number of pages10
JournalPhysics of the Dark Universe
Volume22
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2018

Keywords

  • Primordial black holes
  • Dark Matter

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