In this note we point out that primordial black holes could be much shorter lived than usually assumed if there is a large hidden sector of particles that only interacts gravitationally with the particles of the standard model. The observation of the explosion of one of these black holes would severely constrain the energy scale at which gravity becomes strong.

• Received 22 July 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.087501