Primordial Black Holes ( PBHs ) are black holes that may have been created in the early Universe and could be as large as supermassive black holes or as small as the Planck scale .
It is believed that a black hole has a temperature inversely proportional to its mass and will thermally emit all species of fundamental particles .
PBHs with initial masses of \sim 5.0 \times 10 ^ { 14 } g should be expiring today with bursts of high-energy gamma radiation in the GeV/TeV energy range .
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov ( HAWC ) observatory is sensitive to the high end of the PBH gamma-ray burst spectrum .
Due to its large field of view , duty cycle above 90 % and sensitivity up to 100 TeV , the HAWC observatory is well suited to perform a search for PBH bursts .
We report that if the PBH explodes within 0.25 light years from Earth and within 26 degrees of zenith , HAWC will have a 95 % probability of detecting the PBH burst at the 5 sigma level .
Conversely , a null detection from a 2 year or longer HAWC search will set PBH upper limits which are significantly better than the upper limits set by any previous PBH search .