A new method to detect Hawking radiation involves looking for tiny 'ghost images' in the light of distant gamma-ray bursts.
This proposed technique uses 'femtolensing' signatures to finally prove that black holes evaporate over time. Hawking radiation is famously faint and has been nearly impossible to detect since it was predicted in the 1970s. This strategy looks for specific thermal distortions in high-energy bursts caused by microscopic primordial black holes. Proving this radiation exists would confirm one of Stephen Hawking's most famous predictions. It would also give scientists a way to hunt for the tiny, ancient black holes that may have formed at the beginning of time. This provides the first clear roadmap for seeing the unseeable.
A cosmic femtolensing Hawking radiation signature
SSRN · 6726762
We propose a novel formalism to detect signatures of Hawking radiation (HR) from primordial black holes (PBHs) in the mass range of 10−16 to 10−13M⊙ using the femtolensing effect, within the framework of dark messengers. By adapting the micro- and pico- lensing frameworks for gamma-ray bursts, we model the femto-lensing of HR, characterized by a thermal spectrum in the eV–GeV range, by PBHs acting as gravitational lenses. We derive the magnification and temporal signatures of femtolensed HR, acc