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Primordial black holes

Low mass black holes may have been created in the early universe via gravitational collapse of inhomogeneities ([Hawking 1971]). These primordial black holes, if they exist, should emit a burst of radiation in the final stages of their evaporation (e.g., [Page & Hawking 1976]). In the standard model of particle physics, this last burst of radiation should release about 1030erg in 1s with the energy distribution peaked near 1TeV ([Halzen et al. 1991]). In two years of operation VERITAS would be able to place a limit on this type of decay of 700 pc-3 yr-1. More extreme models (e.g., [Hagedorn 1968]) would produce lower energy events on much shorter time-scales which may be detectable with VERITAS using a special trigger and the flash ADC system ([Krennrich et al. 1999b]). For these events, VERITAS would be sensitive to a level of 10-4 pc-3yr-1.



VERITAS Collaboration