- Open Access
Asteroid-mass primordial black holes as dark matter from supersymmetry
Phys. Rev. D 114, 043515 – Published 10 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sx4x-417b
Abstract
We study the formation of asteroid-mass primordial black holes (PBHs) as a dark matter candidate in supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model. We show that the presence of heavy particles predicted in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) can lead to a transient softening of the equation of state of the Universe during their nonrelativistic transition, enhancing PBH formation. We compute the effective equation of state for different realizations of the MSSM mass spectrum, parametrized by three characteristic mass scales. Assuming a broad and approximately scale-invariant primordial curvature power spectrum, we evaluate the resulting PBH mass functions and compare them with current observational constraints. We find that, for supersymmetric masses above , the PBH mass function is significantly enhanced in the asteroid-mass window, allowing PBHs to account for the total dark matter abundance without violating existing bounds. In contrast, within the Standard Model the same configurations lead to PBH mass functions that are observationally excluded. For lighter supersymmetric mass spectra, PBH production is shifted toward masses above , which are strongly constrained by microlensing searches, thereby reducing their allowed contribution to the dark matter density.
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