Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter evaporating on the Neutrino Floor

TL;DR

This paper explores how primordial black holes in a specific mass range could be detected via neutrino interactions in future dark matter experiments, potentially improving existing limits and affecting the neutrino floor.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to detect PBHs through neutrino interactions in direct detection experiments and quantifies their impact on the neutrino floor.

Findings

Future experiments can set improved bounds on PBH dark matter fraction.

Neutrino signals from PBHs could modify the neutrino floor for WIMP detection.

Next-generation detectors have the potential to observe PBH-induced neutrino interactions.

Abstract

Primordial black holes (PBHs) hypothetically generated in the first instants of life of the Universe are potential dark matter (DM) candidates. Focusing on PBHs masses in the range $[5 \times10^{14} - 5 \times 10^{15}]$g, we point out that the neutrinos emitted by PBHs evaporation can interact through the coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) producing an observable signal in multi-ton DM direct detection experiments. We show that with the high exposures envisaged for the next-generation facilities, it will be possible to set bounds on the fraction of DM composed by PBHs improving the existing neutrino limits obtained with Super-Kamiokande. We also quantify to what extent a signal originating from a small fraction of DM in the form of PBHs would modify the so-called "neutrino floor", the well-known barrier towards detection of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) as the dominant DM component.