AMPM I. A Targeted Search for Asteroid Mass Primordial Black Hole Microlenses

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Key, Renee, Taylor, Edward N., Freeman, Ken C., Mould, Jeremy, Saha, Abhijit, Möller, Anais, Abbott, Timothy M. C., Duffy, Alan R.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Key, Renee
Taylor, Edward N.
Freeman, Ken C.
Mould, Jeremy
Saha, Abhijit
Möller, Anais
Abbott, Timothy M. C.
Duffy, Alan R.
author_facet Key, Renee
Taylor, Edward N.
Freeman, Ken C.
Mould, Jeremy
Saha, Abhijit
Möller, Anais
Abbott, Timothy M. C.
Duffy, Alan R.
contents Gravitational microlensing is a powerful technique for constraining the abundance of dark matter in asteroid mass to supermassive primordial black holes at masses of $-11 \lesssim \log M/\mathrm{M}_\odot \lesssim 5$. In this work, we introduce a new high-cadence stellar microlensing survey in the Large Magellanic Cloud, AMPM. The primary goal of AMPM is to place constraints in the asteroid-to-planetary-mass regime of primordial black hole dark matter. We present the five nights of survey data, the microlensing detection pipeline, and the microlensing efficiency of AMPM. We explore the impact of the stellar distribution in the Large Magellanic Cloud on the microlensing detection efficiency and conduct a detailed analysis of second-order microlensing effects and the impact on the primordial black hole dark matter constraints. Our findings indicate that these second-order effects shift the maximum sensitivity of AMPM toward the lunar-mass black hole regime at $10^{-8} - 10^{-6} \, M_{\odot}$. From the five nights of data, we detect a single microlensing candidate and find that AMPM can constrain at the 95\% C.L up to 30\% of the Galactic primordial black hole dark matter distribution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_19332
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AMPM I. A Targeted Search for Asteroid Mass Primordial Black Hole Microlenses
Key, Renee
Taylor, Edward N.
Freeman, Ken C.
Mould, Jeremy
Saha, Abhijit
Möller, Anais
Abbott, Timothy M. C.
Duffy, Alan R.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Gravitational microlensing is a powerful technique for constraining the abundance of dark matter in asteroid mass to supermassive primordial black holes at masses of $-11 \lesssim \log M/\mathrm{M}_\odot \lesssim 5$. In this work, we introduce a new high-cadence stellar microlensing survey in the Large Magellanic Cloud, AMPM. The primary goal of AMPM is to place constraints in the asteroid-to-planetary-mass regime of primordial black hole dark matter. We present the five nights of survey data, the microlensing detection pipeline, and the microlensing efficiency of AMPM. We explore the impact of the stellar distribution in the Large Magellanic Cloud on the microlensing detection efficiency and conduct a detailed analysis of second-order microlensing effects and the impact on the primordial black hole dark matter constraints. Our findings indicate that these second-order effects shift the maximum sensitivity of AMPM toward the lunar-mass black hole regime at $10^{-8} - 10^{-6} \, M_{\odot}$. From the five nights of data, we detect a single microlensing candidate and find that AMPM can constrain at the 95\% C.L up to 30\% of the Galactic primordial black hole dark matter distribution.
title AMPM I. A Targeted Search for Asteroid Mass Primordial Black Hole Microlenses
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.19332