Welcome to the MIT PBH Group Home Page
Our Focus
The MIT PBH Group is an interdisciplinary group of physicists working at the intersection of particle physics and cosmology. We study primordial black holes as a dark matter candidate, as probes of physics beyond the Standard Model, and for their many possible roles in cosmological history.
Featured Projects
Image by Toby Gleason-Kaiser, using SpaceEngine@Cosmographic Software LLC
Hawking Radiation
PBHs may explain anomalous cosmic ray signals.
Black holes emit energetic particles and antiparticles in a violent explosion at the end of their lives. Could PBH explosions in our galaxy explain cosmic ray antimatter excesses and ultrahigh-energy neutrinos? Detecting small PBHs would be an opportunity to measure Hawking radiation for the first time.
Image by Kaća Bradonjić
Black Holes in the Early Universe
PBHs could play an important role in the evolution of the Universe.
PBHs could have profound effects in the very early universe as catalysts for baryogenesis or seeds for supermassive black holes.
Image by Toby Gleason-Kaiser, using SpaceEngine@Cosmographic Software LLC
Dark Matter
Novel PBH detection strategies.
PBHs are an exciting dark matter candidate, but difficult to detect. PBHs passing through the solar system or orbiting sun-like stars would produce measurable gravitational signatures. Existing cosmic ray experiments could detect evidence of PBHs transiting through or exploding near our Solar System.