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Main Authors: Ewasiuk, Christopher, Profumo, Stefano
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.22516
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author Ewasiuk, Christopher
Profumo, Stefano
author_facet Ewasiuk, Christopher
Profumo, Stefano
contents We calculate the present-day and cosmological volumetric rate of primordial black hole (PBH) quantum tunneling events to white holes, incorporating the competition between Hawking evaporation and tunneling, cosmological depletion, realistic mass-dependent abundance constraints, extended mass functions, and the alternative memory-burden scenario. The burst rate is maximized along a narrow ridge in the mass--tunneling-parameter plane where the effective PBH lifetime is comparable to the age of the Universe. Within the canonical Planck-star range of tunneling timescales, FRB-level rates arise only in two highly restricted regions: a low-mass window near the evaporation boundary, and a narrow sequential window where evaporation precedes tunneling; broadening the PBH mass function does not qualitatively alter this conclusion. We further assess observational constraints from FRB repetition statistics, radio spectral properties, prompt and diffuse gamma-ray limits, host-galaxy demographics, and gravitational-wave signatures. All current observations are consistent with a subdominant white-hole contribution to the FRB population but strongly disfavor a dominant origin. The rate calculation does not generically support FRB-level event densities, and any viable FRB interpretation requires narrow, fine-tuned, and strongly assumption-dependent corners of parameter space.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_22516
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum Tunneling of Primordial Black Holes to White Holes: Rates, Constraints, and Implications for Fast Radio Bursts
Ewasiuk, Christopher
Profumo, Stefano
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
We calculate the present-day and cosmological volumetric rate of primordial black hole (PBH) quantum tunneling events to white holes, incorporating the competition between Hawking evaporation and tunneling, cosmological depletion, realistic mass-dependent abundance constraints, extended mass functions, and the alternative memory-burden scenario. The burst rate is maximized along a narrow ridge in the mass--tunneling-parameter plane where the effective PBH lifetime is comparable to the age of the Universe. Within the canonical Planck-star range of tunneling timescales, FRB-level rates arise only in two highly restricted regions: a low-mass window near the evaporation boundary, and a narrow sequential window where evaporation precedes tunneling; broadening the PBH mass function does not qualitatively alter this conclusion. We further assess observational constraints from FRB repetition statistics, radio spectral properties, prompt and diffuse gamma-ray limits, host-galaxy demographics, and gravitational-wave signatures. All current observations are consistent with a subdominant white-hole contribution to the FRB population but strongly disfavor a dominant origin. The rate calculation does not generically support FRB-level event densities, and any viable FRB interpretation requires narrow, fine-tuned, and strongly assumption-dependent corners of parameter space.
title Quantum Tunneling of Primordial Black Holes to White Holes: Rates, Constraints, and Implications for Fast Radio Bursts
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.22516