Search for Primordial Black Hole Evaporation with VERITAS

TL;DR

This paper reports on a search for gamma-ray bursts from primordial black hole evaporation using VERITAS archival data, providing new constraints on their evaporation rate with advanced analysis techniques.

Contribution

It introduces new analysis methods for detecting primordial black hole bursts and applies them to extensive VERITAS data to set improved constraints.

Findings

No primordial black hole bursts detected.

Established new upper limits on evaporation rate.

Demonstrated effectiveness of advanced search techniques.

Abstract

Primordial black holes are black holes that may have formed from density fluctuations in the early universe. It has been theorized that black holes slowly evaporate. If primordial black holes of initial mass of $10^{14}$g were formed, their evaporation would end in this epoch, in a bright burst of very-high-energy gamma rays. A Cherenkov telescope experiment like VERITAS can look for these primordial black hole bursts in its archival data, constraining the rate-density of their final evaporation. New analysis techniques and search methodologies were used and will be presented here, leading to new constraints on the rate-density evaporation of primordial black holes, using 750 hours of archival VERITAS data.