Probing Primordial Black Holes with upcoming Radio Telescopes: a case study for LOFAR2.0, FAST Core Array and BINGO

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how upcoming radio telescopes can detect gravitational lensing of Fast Radio Bursts to constrain the abundance of primordial black holes as dark matter candidates.

Contribution

It provides forecasts for the ability of LOFAR2.0, FAST Core Array, and BINGO to limit primordial black hole fractions across different mass ranges.

Findings

LOFAR2.0 can constrain PBH fraction to less than 0.16 for masses above 1 solar mass.

FAST Core Array can restrict PBH fraction to less than 0.39 for masses above 10 solar masses.

BINGO can limit PBH fraction to less than 0.39 for masses above 0.01 solar masses.

Abstract

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are among the most intriguing phenomena observed in radio astronomy. So far, about 130 FRB signals have been confirmed and characterized by different surveys, and the CHIME telescope has recently reported a new catalog of 4539 bursts. Therefore, these numbers are expected to increase in the coming years. The detection, or lack thereof, of lensed FRB events can be used to probe Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) as a fraction of dark matter. We investigate the potential of three upcoming radio telescopes, LOFAR2.0, FAST Core Array, and BINGO, to test the PBH scenario. We forecast that LOFAR2.0 will constrain $f_{\mathrm{PBH}} < 0.16$ for PBH masses $M_{\rm PBH}>1\,{M_{\odot}}$, while FAST Core Array and BINGO will restrict $f_{\mathrm{PBH}} < 0.39$ for $M_{\rm PBH}>10\,{M_{\odot}}$ and $M_{\rm PBH}>10^{-2}\,{M_{\odot}}$, respectively. Despite the existence of stricter constraints, FRB lensing offers an independent and complementary probe of PBHs in the Universe, which will improve in the future.