Signatures of primordial black hole dark matter at DUNE and THEIA

TL;DR

Future neutrino experiments DUNE and THEIA could detect or constrain primordial black hole dark matter in the 10^{15}-10^{17} g mass range by observing neutrino fluxes from Hawking radiation, offering a new probe complementary to photon data.

Contribution

This study demonstrates the potential of next-generation neutrino detectors to detect or constrain light primordial black holes as dark matter candidates, expanding the methods beyond photon-based constraints.

Findings

DUNE and THEIA can set competitive constraints on PBH dark matter.

Neutrino fluxes from PBHs provide a new detection channel.

Future experiments will explore currently unconstrained PBH parameter space.

Abstract

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are a potential dark matter candidate whose masses can span over many orders of magnitude. If they have masses in the $10^{15}-10^{17}$ g range, they can emit sizeable fluxes of MeV neutrinos through evaporation via Hawking radiation. We explore the possibility of detecting light (non-)rotating PBHs with future neutrino experiments. We focus on two next generation facilities: the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) and THEIA. We simulate the expected event spectra at both experiments assuming different PBH mass distributions and spins, and we extract the expected 95% C.L. sensitivities to these scenarios. Our analysis shows that future neutrino experiments like DUNE and THEIA will be able to set competitive constraints on PBH dark matter, thus providing complementary probes in a part of the PBH parameter space currently constrained mainly by photon data.