Crater Morphology of Primordial Black Hole Impacts

TL;DR

This paper proposes using lunar crater analysis to detect primordial black holes, offering a novel method to constrain dark matter candidates by identifying unique impact signatures on the Moon's surface.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to detect primordial black holes through crater morphology analysis on the Moon, expanding methods for dark matter research.

Findings

Crater profiles of PBH impacts differ from traditional impacts.

High-resolution lunar scans can potentially identify PBH impact sites.

Method applicable to other rocky bodies in the solar system.

Abstract

In this work we propose a novel campaign for constraining relativistically compact MACHO dark matter, such as primordial black holes (PBHs), using the moon as a detector. PBHs of about $10^{19} \textrm{ g}$ to $10^{22} \textrm{ g}$ may be sufficiently abundant to have collided with the moon in the history of the solar system. We show that the crater profiles of a PBH collision differ from traditional impactors and may be detectable in high resolution lunar surface scans now available. Any candidates may serve as sites for in situ measurements to identify high pressure phases of matter which may have formed near the PBH during the encounter. While we primarily consider PBH dark matter, the discussion generalises to the entire family of MACHO candidates with relativistic compactness. Moreover, we focus on the Moon since it has been studied well, but the same principles can be applied to other rocky bodies in our solar system without an atmosphere.