Investigation of Primordial Black Hole Bursts Using Interplanetary Network Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract

The detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) in the solar neighborhood would have very important implications for GRB phenomenology. The leading theories for cosmological GRBs would not be able to explain such events. The final bursts of evaporating primordial black holes (PBHs), however, would be a natural explanation for local GRBs. We present a novel technique that can constrain the distance to GRBs using detections from widely separated, non-imaging spacecraft. This method can determine the actual distance to the burst if it is local. We applied this method to constrain distances to a sample of 36 short-duration GRBs detected by the Interplanetary Network (IPN) that show observational properties that are expected from PBH evaporations. These bursts have minimum possible distances in the 10 13 -10 18 cm (7-10 5 au) range, which are consistent with the expected PBH energetics and with a possible origin in the solar neighborhood, although none of the bursts can be unambiguously demonstrated to be local. Assuming that these bursts are real PBH events, we estimate lower limits on the PBH burst evaporation rate in the solar neighborhood.

Primordial Black Holes: Observational characteristics of the final evaporation

“…In particular, some short GRBs of duration less than 2 seconds have light curves which are very similar to the BH burst emission time profile shown in Fig. 12 [41].…”

Cosmological evolution of primordial black holes

“…• Searches for PBH bursts [6] are ongoing. Although there are candidates for such events, no confirmed PBH burst event has been detected.…”

“…[4,5]. Since the PBH evaporation rate depends only on the mass of the hole and the assumed particle physics model [6], PBHs in similar astrophysical environments should produce similar radiation signatures; the ultimate "standard candles. "…”

Prospects for the observation of Primordial Black Hole evaporation with the Southern Wide field of view Gamma-ray Observatory

“…A key aspect is to be able to distinguish a BH burst from GRBs and, in that regard, it is particularly important to remark a softto-hard evolution instead of the hard-to-soft one that gamma-ray bursts exhibit [7]. There are other proposals, such as the identification of closeby short GRBs that would naturally be explained by PBHs [17].…”