Hawking-Radiation Recoil of Microscopic Black Holes

Abstract

Hawking radiation would make microscopic black holes evaporate rapidly, which excludes them from many astrophysical considerations. However, it has been argued that the quantum nature of space would alter this behaviour: the temperature of a Planck-size black hole vanishes, and what is left behind is a Planck-mass remnant with the cross-section of $\approx 10^{-70}\mbox{m}^2$, which makes a direct observation nearly impossible. Such black hole remnants have been identified as possible dark matter candidates. Here, we argue that the final stage of evaporation has a recoil effect that gives them a velocity up to $\approx 10^{-1} c$. This would lead to a disagreement with the cold dark matter cosmological model unless the primordial black hole formation ceased shortly after the inflation era.