Colóquios

Cosmological observations indicate that the current universe is roughly 69% dark energy, 26% dark matter, and 5% ordinary matter. Dark matter is usually assumed to be some type of elementary particle, but the lack of direct evidence for such a particle has inspired some researchers to look for other possibilities. One prospect, which has received renewed interest due to the discoveries of black hole mergers with LIGO and Virgo, is that dark matter could mainly be primordial black holes. In this talk, I will discuss why black holes could theoretically operate as dark matter, and then examine the existing limits on primordial black holes of different masses. This is a topic that brings in an unusually rich variety of arguments from astronomy and physics, with prospects for continued improvement with more gravitational wave discoveries.

Local: Sala Jayme Tiomno