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arXiv · 2209.12415

Detecting sublunar-mass primordial black holes with the Earth-Moon binary system

Ya-Ling Li·Guo-Qing Huang·Zong-Qiang Huang·Fu-Wen Shu
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Abstract

In this paper we propose a new way to detect sublunar-mass primordial black holes (PBHs) by direct observations of the Earth-Moon binary system.Our method is based on treating PBH as a perturbation term, by assuming that the PBH is far away from the Earth-Moon binary (far greater than 1 AU) and the mass of the PBH is small (less than the lunar mass). This perturbation treatment allows us to develop a framework to calculate the orbits of a generic binary system such as the Earth-Moon binary system. Our numerical results show that the Earth-Moon distance is sensitive to the initial values of the system. In most cases, the long-duration interactions between the PBH and the Earth-Moon system can induce lasting imprints on the Earth-Moon's orbit, and these imprints can accumulate over time, eventually giving rise to observable deviations which can be used to infer the properties of the PBH.

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Ya-Ling Li, Guo-Qing Huang, Zong-Qiang Huang, Fu-Wen Shu. 2022-09-26. Detecting sublunar-mass primordial black holes with the Earth-Moon binary system. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.107.084019

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