English

Ultra-High-Energy Neutrinos from Primordial Black Holes

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2025-09-24 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

The KM3NeT Collaboration recently announced the detection of a neutrino with energy 220 PeV. One possible source of such ultra-high-energy particles is the rapid emission of energetic Hawking radiation from a primordial black hole (PBH) near the end of its evaporation lifetime. The mass distribution for PBHs features a power-law tail for small masses; a small subset of PBHs would be undergoing late-stage evaporation today. We find that recent high-energy neutrino events detected by the IceCube and KM3NeT Collaborations, with energies O(1102)PeV{\cal O} (1 - 10^2) \, {\rm PeV}, are consistent with event-rate expectations if a significant fraction of the dark matter consists of PBHs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.19227,
  title  = {Ultra-High-Energy Neutrinos from Primordial Black Holes},
  author = {Alexandra P. Klipfel and David I. Kaiser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.19227},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

5pp, 2 figures, plus appendix. Minor revisions to match published version, forthcoming in Physical Review Letters