English

Implications for Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter from a Single Subsolar Mass Gravitational-wave Detection in LVK O1--O4

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-05-13 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

The detection of sub-solar mass black holes is a milestone of modern astrophysics as it would open a window either onto new stellar physics or could potentially unveil the nature of Dark Matter as Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). On November 12, 2025, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration reported the compact binary merger candidate S251112cm, a system with no obvious electromagnetic counterpart, consistent with binary black hole merger with a chirp mass in the range 0.10.87M0.1-0.87 \, M_\odot. The probability that at least one component has mass <<1 MM_{\odot} is >99%>99\%. Inspired by this trigger, we tested if a population of PBHs formed at Quantum Chromodynamics epoch with a broad mass function could account for a signal of this type. Our results, corresponding to a predicted event rate of 0.8yr10.8 \,\text{yr}^{-1} as seen by LVK O3b, suggest that the observed merger rate of 0.230.218+0.86yr1  (95%  C.L.)0.23^{+0.86}_{-0.218}\,\text{yr}^{-1}\;(95\%\;\text{C.L.}) if the trigger is confirmed as an astrophysical event would be compatible with such a model. Our predicted detection rate is also in agreement with current LVK expectations for stellar-mass binaries, remaining consistent with a scenario in which a non-negligible fraction of the 3200  M3-200 \;M_\odot mergers observed by LVK originate from Primordial Black Holes. If confirmed, this detection would place a lower limit to the PBH abundance fPBH>0.04f_{PBH}>0.04 for our adopted model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.21295,
  title  = {Implications for Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter from a Single Subsolar Mass Gravitational-wave Detection in LVK O1--O4},
  author = {Alberto Magaraggia and Nico Cappelluti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.21295},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

9 pages, 2 figures, Published in ApJ. Title updated to match the accepted journal version; minor revisions to the text