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Probing Dark Sectors with Exploding Black Holes: Gamma Rays

Michael J. Baker, Joaquim Iguaz Juan, Aidan Symons, Andrea Thamm

TL;DR

This work evaluates the potential to probe dark-sector particle spectra through gamma rays from exploding primordial black holes via Hawking radiation. By incorporating realistic instrument response functions, refined background modeling, and optimized time-bin statistics, the authors forecast sensitivities for current observatories (HAWC, LHAASO) and future facilities (SWGO, CTA North/South) across multiple sky positions. They show that a nearby EBH (∼0.01 pc) could constrain large dark sectors, with HAWC probing ~10–20 new Dirac fermions up to ∼10^5 GeV and CTA extending to ∼10^6 GeV masses, while CTA sites could observe 10–50 fermions at larger distances. The results highlight the transformative potential of EBH observations to reveal the particle content of nature and guide future multi-instrument gamma-ray searches.

Abstract

The Hawking radiation from the explosion of a black hole would provide definitive information on the particle spectrum of nature. Here we quantify the potential of current and future gamma ray telescopes to probe new dark sectors. We improve on the analysis used in previous work by making careful use of the experimental response functions, deriving a more realistic estimate of the backgrounds and optimizing the statistical analysis. We compute the sensitivity of the current experiments (HAWC and LHAASO) and estimate the reach of the future experiments (SWGO and CTA North and South), for various sky positions of the explosion. We find that for a black hole exploding at $0.01\,\text{pc}$ the gamma ray signal observed by HAWC could probe dark sectors with 10-20 (or more) new Dirac fermions up to masses around $10^5\,\text{GeV}$, while CTA will be able to probe 2-15 new Dirac fermions with masses up to $10^6\,\text{GeV}$. CTA North and South will have sensitivity to 10 dark fermions up to a distance of 0.1 pc and 50 up to a distance of 0.6 pc.

Probing Dark Sectors with Exploding Black Holes: Gamma Rays

TL;DR

This work evaluates the potential to probe dark-sector particle spectra through gamma rays from exploding primordial black holes via Hawking radiation. By incorporating realistic instrument response functions, refined background modeling, and optimized time-bin statistics, the authors forecast sensitivities for current observatories (HAWC, LHAASO) and future facilities (SWGO, CTA North/South) across multiple sky positions. They show that a nearby EBH (∼0.01 pc) could constrain large dark sectors, with HAWC probing ~10–20 new Dirac fermions up to ∼10^5 GeV and CTA extending to ∼10^6 GeV masses, while CTA sites could observe 10–50 fermions at larger distances. The results highlight the transformative potential of EBH observations to reveal the particle content of nature and guide future multi-instrument gamma-ray searches.

Abstract

The Hawking radiation from the explosion of a black hole would provide definitive information on the particle spectrum of nature. Here we quantify the potential of current and future gamma ray telescopes to probe new dark sectors. We improve on the analysis used in previous work by making careful use of the experimental response functions, deriving a more realistic estimate of the backgrounds and optimizing the statistical analysis. We compute the sensitivity of the current experiments (HAWC and LHAASO) and estimate the reach of the future experiments (SWGO and CTA North and South), for various sky positions of the explosion. We find that for a black hole exploding at the gamma ray signal observed by HAWC could probe dark sectors with 10-20 (or more) new Dirac fermions up to masses around , while CTA will be able to probe 2-15 new Dirac fermions with masses up to . CTA North and South will have sensitivity to 10 dark fermions up to a distance of 0.1 pc and 50 up to a distance of 0.6 pc.
Paper Structure (20 sections, 28 equations, 13 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 20 sections, 28 equations, 13 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Photon Spectrum of an Exploding Black Hole
  3. Current and Future Experiments
  4. HAWC -- The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory
  5. LHAASO -- The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory
  6. SWGO -- The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory
  7. CTA -- The Cherenkov Telescope Array
  8. Sky Map
  9. Probing the Particle Spectrum with an Exploding Black Hole
  10. Signal from an Exploding Black Hole
  11. Background Rates
  12. Analysis Strategies
  13. Comparison of Different Statistical Tests
  14. Comparison of Different Binning Strategies
  15. Results
  16. ...and 5 more sections

Figures (13)

  • Figure 1: Left: The primary (dashed) and total (solid) gamma ray spectrum emitted from black holes of different masses. Right: The Page function $\alpha(M)$, which encodes the particles present in nature, for the SM (blue) and with the SM plus two example dark sectors (orange and green), see text for details.
  • Figure 2: Effective areas for gamma rays versus the incoming gamma ray energy for the gamma ray telescopes HAWC, LHAASO, SWGO and CTA North and South.
  • Figure 3: Effective areas for light cosmic rays (top left), angular resolutions (top right), cosmic ray misidentification fractions (bottom left) and cosmic ray background rates (bottom right) versus the photon energy for the gamma ray telescopes HAWC, LHAASO, SWGO and CTA North and South (where available).
  • Figure 4: Map of the sky (presented as the point in the sky directly above the corresponding point on the surface of the Earth) with current and projected fields of view as given in \ref{['tab:GammaRayExperiments']}. See text for details.
  • Figure 5: Maximal integration times versus the minimum photon energy for the gamma ray telescopes HAWC, LHAASO, SWGO, and CTA North and South. The horizontal gray lines at $\tau_\text{max} = 240\,$s and $\tau_\text{max} = 7200\,$s indicate the time in which the Earth rotates by more than $1\degree$ (the approximate angular resolution of the experiments) and by one grid line of longitude in \ref{['fig:SkyMap']}, respectively.
  • ...and 8 more figures