Eliminating the Remaining Window for Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter from the Dynamics of the Cold Kuiper Belt

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the dynamics of the cold Kuiper belt exclude primordial black holes in the remaining mass window as the sole dark matter candidate, supporting the particle nature of dark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dynamical constraint from the Kuiper belt that rules out primordial black holes as the main dark matter component in the remaining mass window.

Findings

Kuiper belt dynamics exclude PBHs as dark matter in the 10^{17}-10^{23} g range.

Supports the hypothesis that dark matter is likely particle-based.

Provides a new astrophysical constraint on dark matter candidates.

Abstract

The nature of dark matter (DM) is unknown. One compelling possibility is DM being composed of primordial black holes (PBHs), given the tight limits on some types of elementary particles as DM. There is only one remaining window of masses available for PBHs to constitute the entire DM density, $10^{17} - 10^{23} \mathrm{\; g}$. Here, we show that the kernel population in the cold Kuiper belt rules out this window, arguing in favor of a particle nature for DM.