About detecting very low mass black holes in LAr detectors

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for next-generation large liquid argon detectors to directly detect micro black holes near the Planck mass, which could be a dark matter candidate, by analyzing their ionization and scintillation signals.

Contribution

It demonstrates that LAr detectors can distinguish micro black holes from other particles through their unique ionization and scintillation signatures.

Findings

Micro black holes produce uniform ionization and scintillation signals.

Trajectories of micro black holes appear as crossing the entire detector.

Detection is feasible for black holes with masses around the Planck scale.

Abstract

The nature of dark matter is still an open problem. The simplest assumption is that gravity is the only force coupled certainly to dark matter and thus the micro black holes could be a viable candidate. We investigated the possibility of direct detection of micro black holes with masses around and upward the Planck scale (10$^{-5}$ g), ensuring classical gravitational treatment of these objects in the next generation of huge LAr detectors. We show that the signals (ionization and scintillation) produced in LAr enable the discrimination between micro black holes or other particles. It is expected that the trajectories of these micro black holes will appear as crossing the whole active medium, in any direction, producing uniform ionization and scintillation on all the path.