Spectral Lags of Gamma-Ray Bursts from Primordial Black Hole (PBH) Evaporations

TL;DR

This paper proposes using spectral lag analysis of gamma-ray bursts to identify evaporating primordial black holes with the Fermi telescope, offering a novel detection method for these early Universe objects.

Contribution

It introduces spectral lag as a new observational technique to detect PBH evaporation events in gamma-ray data.

Findings

Spectral lag can distinguish PBH evaporation from other gamma-ray bursts.

Method provides a new way to search for primordial black holes.

Potential to identify PBH events in existing Fermi data.

Abstract

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs), which may have been created in the early Universe, are predicted to be detectable by their Hawking radiation. PBHs with an initial mass of 5.0 * 10^14 g should be expiring today with a burst of high energy particles. Evaporating PBHs in the solar neighborhood are candidate Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) progenitors. We propose spectral lag, which is the temporal delay between the high energy photon pulse and the low energy photon pulse, as a possible method to detect PBH evaporation events with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Observatory.