

So these black holes would have been able to escape current observational constraints, because they would have left the scene early enough.īut we can still find ways to detect small primordial black holes, as the researchers detailed in their paper. This was well before the next significant epoch in the history of the universe, the formation of the first elements. These smaller primordial black holes wouldn't have lived long, as Hawking radiation would have caused them to evaporate in only a few minutes. But smaller black holes release radiation at a faster rate. A typical stellar-mass black hole releases only one particle of radiation every year. This process, known as Hawking radiation, is incredibly slow. Instead, they slowly release radiation through an exotic quantum process happening at their event horizons. Thanks to Hawking, we know that black holes aren't entirely black. They detailed their findings in a paper posted to the online preprint database arXiv (opens in new tab).Īll black holes have finite lifetimes. So a team of physicists examined in detail how these smaller black holes might behave - and how we might detect them. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)) Arrested developmentīut not many researchers have paid attention to the smaller, mountain-size black holes that could have formed in the aftermath of inflation. Artist’s impression of the supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy and its powerful jet.
