Pulsar timing can constrain primordial black holes in the LIGO mass window

Abstract: The recent discovery of gravitational waves from merging black holes has generated interest in primordial black holes as a possible component of the dark matter. In this paper, we show that pulsar timing may soon have sufficient data to constrain $1$-$1000\,M_{\odot}$ primordial black holes via the non-detection of a third-order Shapiro time delay as the black holes move around the Galactic halo. We present the results of a Monte Carlo simulation which suggests that future data from known pulsars may be capable of constraining the PBH density more stringently than other existing methods in the mass range ~1-30$\,M_{\odot}$. We find that timing new pulsars discovered using the proposed Square Kilometre Array may constrain primordial black holes in this mass range to comprise less than ~1-10% of the dark matter.