Searching for Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter with Pulsar Timing Arrays

Abstract

We discuss the possibility of detecting the presence of primordial black holes (PBHs), such as those that might account for galactic dark matter, using modification of pulsar timing residuals when PBHs pass within ~1000 AU and impart impulse accelerations to the Earth. With this technique, PBHs with masses around 10^{25} g (~0.1 lunar mass) can be detected. Currently, the constraints on the abundance of such dark matter candidates are weak. A 30 year-long monitoring campaign with the proposed Square Kilometer Array (SKA) can rule out a PBH fraction more than ~1/10 in the solar neighborhood in the form of dark matter with mass ~10^{25} g.