Tiny black holes from the very beginning of time could be the reason why we can't find 100% of the universe's missing dark matter.
April 2, 2026
Original Paper
Quantum Oppenheimer-Snyder primordial black holes as all the dark matter
arXiv · 2604.00515
The Takeaway
Physicists have struggled to find a single particle that explains dark matter. By applying quantum rules to how black holes formed in the early universe, this paper shows they might be the 'missing' stuff, remaining stable enough to exist today unlike standard models predict.
From the abstract
Primordial black holes (PBHs) are widely considered as candidates for dark matter in many recent studies, and they are often modeled as Schwarzschild or Kerr black holes (BHs), which have curvature singularities. Nevertheless, resolving the classical singularity may require quantum gravity motivated corrections, thereby yielding an effective quantum corrected BH spacetime geometry different from the Schwarzschild or Kerr cases. Therefore, it is well motivated to consider BHs beyond the Schwarzsc