Title
Search for Gamma-Ray Emission from Local Primordial Black Holes with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
Date Issued
10 April 2018
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Ackermann M.
Atwood W.B.
Baldini L.
Ballet J.
Barbiellini G.
Bastieri D.
Bellazzini R.
Berenji B.
Bissaldi E.
Blandford R.D.
Bloom E.D.
Bonino R.
Bottacini E.
Bregeon J.
Bruel P.
Buehler R.
Cameron R.A.
Caputo R.
Caraveo P.A.
Cavazzuti E.
Charles E.
Chekhtman A.
Cheung C.C.
Chiaro G.
Ciprini S.
Cohen-Tanugi J.
Conrad J.
Costantin D.
D'Ammando F.
Palma F.D.
Digel S.W.
Lalla N.D.
Mauro M.D.
Venere L.D.
Favuzzi C.
Fegan S.J.
Focke W.B.
Franckowiak A.
Fukazawa Y.
Funk S.
Fusco P.
Gargano F.
Gasparrini D.
Giglietto N.
Giordano F.
Giroletti M.
Green D.
Grenier I.A.
Guillemot L.
Guiriec S.
Horan D.
Jóhannesson G.
Johnson C.
Kensei S.
Kocevski D.
Kuss M.
Larsson S.
Latronico L.
Li J.
Longo F.
Loparco F.
Lovellette M.N.
Lubrano P.
Magill J.D.
Maldera S.
Malyshev D.
Manfreda A.
Mazziotta M.N.
McEnery J.E.
Meyer M.
Michelson P.F.
Mitthumsiri W.
Mizuno T.
Monzani M.E.
Moretti E.
Morselli A.
Moskalenko I.V.
Negro M.
Nuss E.
Ojha R.
Omodei N.
Orienti M.
Orlando E.
Ormes J.F.
Palatiello M.
Paliya V.S.
Paneque D.
Persic M.
Pesce-Rollins M.
Piron F.
Principe G.
Rainò S.
Rando R.
Razzano M.
Razzaque S.
Reimer A.
Reimer O.
Ritz S.
Sánchez-Conde M.
Sgrò C.
Publisher(s)
Institute of Physics Publishing
Abstract
Black holes with masses below approximately 1015 g are expected to emit gamma-rays with energies above a few tens of MeV, which can be detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Although black holes with these masses cannot be formed as a result of stellar evolution, they may have formed in the early universe and are therefore called primordial black holes (PBHs). Previous searches for PBHs have focused on either short-timescale bursts or the contribution of PBHs to the isotropic gamma-ray emission. We show that, in cases of individual PBHs, the Fermi-LAT is most sensitive to PBHs with temperatures above approximately 16 GeV and masses 6 ×1011 g, which it can detect out to a distance of about 0.03 pc. These PBHs have a remaining lifetime of months to years at the start of the Fermi mission. They would appear as potentially moving point sources with gamma-ray emission that become spectrally harder and brighter with time until the PBH completely evaporates. In this paper, we develop a new algorithm to detect the proper motion of gamma-ray point sources, and apply it to 318 unassociated point sources at a high galactic latitude in the third Fermi-LAT source catalog. None of the unassociated point sources with spectra consistent with PBH evaporation show significant proper motion. Using the nondetection of PBH candidates, we derive a 99% confidence limit on the PBH evaporation rate in the vicinity of Earth, PPBH < 7.2 × 103 pc-3 yr-1. This limit is similar to the limits obtained with ground-based gamma-ray observatories.
Volume
857
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Física de partículas, Campos de la Física
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85045575187
Source
Astrophysical Journal
ISSN of the container
0004637X
Sponsor(s)
60 Wallenberg Academy Fellow. 61 Funded by contract FIRB-2012-RBFR12PM1F from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR).
The Fermi-LAT Collaboration acknowledges generous ongoing support from a number of agencies and institutes that have supported both the development and the operation of the LAT as well as scientific data analysis. These include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy in the United States, the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules in France, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan, and the K. A.Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Swedish National Space Board in Sweden.
Additional support for science analysis during the operations phase is gratefully acknowledged from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales in France. This work performed in part under DOE Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus