Hunting Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter in Lyman-$α$ Forest

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Saha, Akash Kumar, Singh, Abhijeet, Parashari, Priyank, Laha, Ranjan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912645175574528
author Saha, Akash Kumar
Singh, Abhijeet
Parashari, Priyank
Laha, Ranjan
author_facet Saha, Akash Kumar
Singh, Abhijeet
Parashari, Priyank
Laha, Ranjan
contents A very pressing question in contemporary physics is the identity of Dark Matter (DM). Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are one of the most well-motivated DM candidates. Light PBHs have been constrained by either the non-detection of their Hawking radiation itself, or by the non-observation of any measurable effects of this radiation on astrophysical and cosmological observables. We constrain the PBH contribution to the DM density by non-detection of their Hawking radiation's effect on the intergalactic medium (IGM) temperature evolution. We use the latest deductions of IGM temperature from Lyman-$α$ forest observations. We put constraints on the fraction of DM as PBHs with masses $5 \times 10^{15}$ g - $10^{17}$ g, separately for spinning and non-spinning BHs. We derive constraints by dealing with the heating effects of the astrophysical reionization sources on the IGM in two ways. In one way, we completely neglect this heating due to astrophysical sources, thus giving us weaker constraints, but completely robust to the reionization history of the universe. In the second way, we utilise some modelling of the ionization and temperature history, and use it to derive more stringent constraints. We find that for non-spinning PBHs of mass $10^{16}$ g, the current measurements can constrain the PBH-density to be $\lesssim$ 0.1\% of the total DM. We find that these constraints are competitive, and hence provide a new observable to probe the nature of PBH DM. The systematics affecting Lyman-$α$ forest measurements are different from other constraining observations, and thus this is a complementary probe.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_10617
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hunting Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter in Lyman-$α$ Forest
Saha, Akash Kumar
Singh, Abhijeet
Parashari, Priyank
Laha, Ranjan
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
A very pressing question in contemporary physics is the identity of Dark Matter (DM). Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are one of the most well-motivated DM candidates. Light PBHs have been constrained by either the non-detection of their Hawking radiation itself, or by the non-observation of any measurable effects of this radiation on astrophysical and cosmological observables. We constrain the PBH contribution to the DM density by non-detection of their Hawking radiation's effect on the intergalactic medium (IGM) temperature evolution. We use the latest deductions of IGM temperature from Lyman-$α$ forest observations. We put constraints on the fraction of DM as PBHs with masses $5 \times 10^{15}$ g - $10^{17}$ g, separately for spinning and non-spinning BHs. We derive constraints by dealing with the heating effects of the astrophysical reionization sources on the IGM in two ways. In one way, we completely neglect this heating due to astrophysical sources, thus giving us weaker constraints, but completely robust to the reionization history of the universe. In the second way, we utilise some modelling of the ionization and temperature history, and use it to derive more stringent constraints. We find that for non-spinning PBHs of mass $10^{16}$ g, the current measurements can constrain the PBH-density to be $\lesssim$ 0.1\% of the total DM. We find that these constraints are competitive, and hence provide a new observable to probe the nature of PBH DM. The systematics affecting Lyman-$α$ forest measurements are different from other constraining observations, and thus this is a complementary probe.
title Hunting Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter in Lyman-$α$ Forest
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.10617