Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts

Li, Jing-Hao; Wang, Shi-Jie; Zhao, Xin-Yang; Li, Nan

doi:10.3390/universe11090311

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Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts

Department of Physics, College of Sciences, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Universe 2025, 11(9), 311; https://doi.org/10.3390/universe11090311

Submission received: 1 August 2025 / Revised: 9 September 2025 / Accepted: 10 September 2025 / Published: 11 September 2025

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Primordial Black Holes: Observational Strategies)

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Abstract

Light from fast radio bursts (FRBs) can be deflected by the gravitational lensing effect of primordial black holes (PBHs), if they are distributed along the path from the FRBs to the observer. Consequently, the PBH mass function can be constrained by the lensing events of FRBs. In this work, four different PBH mass functions are investigated (i.e., the monochromatic, log-normal, skew log-normal, and power-law distributions), and the constraints on the model parameters are obtained, if the PBH abundance

f_{PBH}

and the event rate of lensed FRBs

\bar{τ}

are given. We find that, if

\bar{τ} < 10^{- 4}

in future FRB experiments,

f_{PBH}

will be less than

10^{- 2.5}

in most of the PBH mass range from 1–

100 M_{⊙}

for the monochromatic mass function. Moreover, for the three extended mass functions,

\bar{τ}

increases when the PBH mass distributions spread to larger masses, setting more stringent constraints on

f_{PBH}

.

Keywords: primordial black hole; gravitational lensing; fast radio burst

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MDPI and ACS Style

Li, J.-H.; Wang, S.-J.; Zhao, X.-Y.; Li, N. Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts. Universe 2025, 11, 311. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe11090311

AMA Style

Li J-H, Wang S-J, Zhao X-Y, Li N. Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts. Universe. 2025; 11(9):311. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe11090311

Chicago/Turabian Style

Li, Jing-Hao, Shi-Jie Wang, Xin-Yang Zhao, and Nan Li. 2025. "Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts" Universe 11, no. 9: 311. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe11090311

APA Style

Li, J.-H., Wang, S.-J., Zhao, X.-Y., & Li, N. (2025). Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts. Universe, 11(9), 311. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe11090311

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Constraining the Primordial Black Hole Mass Function by the Lensing Events of Fast Radio Bursts

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