Constraining primordial black holes as dark matter at JUNO
Sai Wang, Dongmei Xia, Xukun Zhang, Shun Zhou, Zhe Chang
Abstract
As an attractive candidate for dark matter, the primordial black holes (PBHs) in the mass range $(8\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{14}\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{16})\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{g}$ could be detected via their Hawking radiation, including neutrinos and antineutrinos of three flavors. In this paper, we investigate the possibility to constrain the PBHs as dark matter by measuring (anti)neutrino signals at the large liquid-scintillator detector of Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO). Among six available detection channels, the inverse beta decay ${\overline{\ensuremath{\nu}}}_{e}+p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{+}+n$ is shown to be most sensitive to the fraction ${f}_{\mathrm{PBH}}$ of PBHs contributing to the dark matter abundance. Given the PBH mass ${M}_{\mathrm{PBH}}={10}^{15}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{g}$, we find that JUNO will be able to place an upper bound ${f}_{\mathrm{PBH}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$, which is 20 times better than the current best limit ${f}_{\mathrm{PBH}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ from Super-Kamiokande. For heavier PBHs with a lower Hawking temperature, the (anti)neutrinos become less energetic, leading to a relatively weaker bound.