HAWC sensitivity for the Rate-Density of Evaporating Primordial Black Holes

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are hypothetical black holes that may have formed from extreme densities of matter present during the early universe. Hawking showed that due to quantum-gravitational effects, a black hole possesses a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and emits with a thermal spectrum all species of fundamental particles. PBHs with initial masses of 5:0 10 14 g should be expiring now with bursts of high- energy particles, including gamma rays in the MeV - TeV energy range, making them candidate gamma ray burst (GRB) progenitors. A number of detectors have searched for these events and reported upper limits. The upcoming High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a next generation water Cherenkov telescope located in Mexico at 4100 m above sea level. HAWC is sensitive to gamma-rays in the energy range 50 GeV to 100 TeV. Due to its wide field-of-view and high duty-cycle, HAWC will become the prime observatory for either detecting a PBH burst or setting stringent new limits on the PBH burst rate. In this paper we present the sensitivity of HAWC to PBH bursts according to the standard model of particle physics.