[This is blog post 2600. You have to be a real nerd to know why I care.]
I gave the annual Robbins Lecture in the Department of Physics at Rutgers University. I spoke about noise modeling and the discoveries of transiting exoplanets. Before my talk, I had many interesting discussions around the department, including extensive discussion of my favorite black-hole dark-matter model: tens- to hundreds-of-Solar-mass black holes. This model is not ruled out by anything, and it is possible to calculate exactly. Now, interesting question: What if the black holes discovered by LIGO are in fact dark-matter particles? Matthew Buckley (Rutgers) and I discussed this idea in some detail: Is the implied event rate consistent with three-body and many-body capture processes? Would the stochastic background be too loud? Etc.
Dear David: are you suggesting that DM could consist of a myriad of 10-100 solar masses black holes? Did you do any math? I mean did you check whether such hypothesis matches the number of possible candidates which you could obtain from a typical IMF?
ReplyDeleteI am curious.
In this scenario, the BHs would have to be primordial.
DeleteI see. Thanks
Deletebtw. Do you know about cosmological black holes? they have been invoked to justify the formation of voids.... I believe it is a series of papers by Stornaiolo and collaborators....
DeleteWould they be ruled out due to lack of observed lensing distortion in radio-source jets? (Lacey and Ostriker come to mind.)
ReplyDelete2600: The Hacker Quarterly? Atari 2600?
ReplyDelete