Probing Two Dark Dimensions through Primordial Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Colliders

Abstract

We study primordial-black-hole (PBH) dark matter in the two-dark-dimensions (2DD) framework, a six-dimensional brane-world scenario with two compact extra dimensions and a fundamental gravity scale of order $10\,\mathrm{TeV}$. We calculate the evolution of higher-dimensional PBHs including the recently proposed quantum-gravitational memory-burden effect. For a memory exponent $p=2$, the evaporation rate is strongly suppressed, allowing PBHs with initial masses as small as $\sim10^{-3}\,\mathrm{g}$ to survive until the present epoch. Consequently, PBHs can account for the observed dark matter over a mass range extending from $10^{-3}\,\mathrm{g}$ to $10^{21}\,\mathrm{g}$. We further compute the stochastic gravitational-wave background generated at second order by the primordial curvature perturbations responsible for PBH formation. We show that the conventional four-dimensional formalism for scalar-induced gravitational waves remains applicable throughout the mass range accessible to current and future gravitational wave experiments. The resulting signals can be probed by LISA, DECIGO, and pulsar timing arrays. Using Fisher forecasts, we find that these observations can constrain the PBH mass, dark-matter fraction, and width of the primordial curvature spectrum with high precision. The low fundamental gravity scale of the 2DD framework also permits the production of microscopic black holes at future high-energy colliders. Their decay signatures, together with gravitational-wave measurements, provide complementary tests of higher-dimensional gravity, the memory-burden mechanism, and primordial-black-hole dark matter.