Comment on “Excluding Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter Based on Solar System Ephemeris”

Abstract

It was recently claimed (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.10799) that solar system ephemeris data can exclude primordial black hole (PBH) dark matter in the mass range 10¹⁸–10²² g. I show that this conclusion is based on an implausible, implicit assumption; namely the uncertainty on the solar system mass within 50 au is as small as the uncertainty on the mass of the Sun. Correcting for this error, I find that ephemeris data can only constrain PBH’s with mass below 10¹⁶ g, which is already excluded by constraints on their evaporation via Hawking radiation. Correcting a further error concerning the time-averaged rate of such fluctuations nullifies even this weaker constraint.