Black holes at the Large Hadron Collider

Area of Science:

• High-energy particle physics
• Quantum gravity phenomenology
• Cosmology

Background:

• Theories of quantum gravity suggest the possibility of microscopic black hole (BH) production at energies accessible by the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
• Such BHs are expected to evaporate rapidly via Hawking radiation, producing a distinct signature in particle detectors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the potential for detecting microscopic black holes (BHs) at the LHC.
• To explore how the decay products of these BHs can be used to test fundamental physics.
• To determine the number of large extra dimensions and the scale of quantum gravity.

Main Methods:

• Simulating the production of one black hole (BH) per second at the LHC, assuming a quantum gravity scale near TeV.
• Analyzing the clean signatures of BH decays into prompt, hard photons, electrons, or muons, characterized by low background.
• Correlating BH mass with temperature, derived from the energy spectrum of decay products.

Main Results:

• BHs produced at the LHC would have a detectable signature due to their decay into specific final states.
• The energy spectrum of decay products provides a means to measure BH temperature.
• The mass-temperature correlation allows for direct testing of Hawking's evaporation law.

Conclusions:

• The detection of black holes (BHs) at the LHC is feasible and would provide a unique probe of quantum gravity.
• BH decay analysis can experimentally determine the number of large extra dimensions.
• This approach offers a direct method to measure the fundamental scale of quantum gravity.