Observing higher-dimensional black holes at the LHC

A new approach to spacetime proposing the existence of n compactified large extra dimensions predicts the creation of higher-dimensional black holes at the LHC of CERN. In case they form, signatures of such black holes at accelerators would be quite significant and black hole decay products would carry valuable information for particle physics and cosmology. In this study we first make a short theoretical introduction, then present the results of an analysis made on a Monte Carlo simulation modeling black hole production and decay at the LHC. This analysis includes the examination of the lepton case in black hole to Higgs decay channels, reconstruction of the black hole masses, a calculation of the Hawking temperature and a determination of the radiated jets/leptons multiplicity ratio.Received: 2 April 2004, Revised: 29 October 2004, Published online: 25 January 2005PACS: 04.70, 04.50, 14.80.-j Corresponding author: S. Sekmen     

Top quark production from black holes at the CERN LHC

LHC is expected to be a top quark factory. If the fundamental Planck scale is near a TeV, then we also expect the top quarks to be produced from black holes via Hawking radiation. In this Letter we calculate the cross sections for top quark production from black holes at the LHC and compare it with the direct top quark cross section via parton fusion processes at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). We find that the top quark production from black holes can be larger or smaller than the pQCD predictions at NNLO depending upon the Planck mass and black hole mass. Hence the observation of very high rates for massive particle production (top quarks, Higgs or supersymmetry) at the LHC may be an useful signature for black hole production.     

Effective Lagrangian for quantum black holes

We discuss the most general effective Lagrangian obtained from the assumption that the degrees of freedom to be quantized, in a black hole, are on the horizon. The effective Lagrangian depends only on the induced metric and the extrinsic curvature of the (fluctuating) horizon, and the possible operators can be arranged in an expansion in powers of M_P1/M, where M_P1 is the Planck mass and M the black hole mass. We perform a semiclassical expansion of the action with a formalism which preserves general covariance explicitly. Quantum fluctuations over the classical solutions are described by a single scalar field living in the (2 + 1)-dimensional world-volume swept by the horizon, with a given coupling to the background geometry. We discuss the resulting field theory and we compute the black hole entropy with our formalism.     

Charged black hole remnants at the LHC

We investigate possible signatures of long-lived (or stable) charged black holes at the Large Hadron Collider. In particular, we find that black hole remnants are characterised by quite low speed. Due to this fact, the charged remnants could, in some cases, be very clearly distinguished from the background events, exploiting dE/dX measurements. We also compare the estimate energy released by such remnants with that of typical Standard Model particles, using the Bethe–Bloch formula.     

Astrophysical structures from primordial quantum black holes

The characteristic sizes of astrophysical structures, up to the whole observed Universe, can be recovered, in principle, assuming that gravity is the overall interaction assembling systems starting from microscopic scales, whose order of magnitude is ruled by the Planck length and the related Compton wavelength. This result agrees with the absence of screening mechanisms for the gravitational interaction and could be connected to the presence of Yukawa corrections in the Newtonian potential which introduce typical interaction lengths. This result directly comes out from quantization of primordial black holes and then characteristic interaction lengths directly emerge from quantum field theory.     

Formation of black holes in quantum cosmology

The formation of black holes in the quantum cosmology scheme has been discussed by means of calculating the wave function of the universe with a black hole, which is described by a Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric. The average radius of the Schwarzschild black holes formed in the process of the birth of the universe is shown to be about l_p⁶H²/a³, where l_p is the Planck length; ∧=3H² is the cosmological constant; a is the radius of the universe when it enters into the classical era.     

Regular black holes in UV self-complete quantum gravity

In this Letter we investigate the role of regular (curvature singularity-free) black holes in the framework of UV self-complete quantum gravity. The existence of a minimal length, shielding the trans-Planckian regime to any physical probe, is self-consistently included into the black hole probe itself. In this way we obtain to slightly shift the barrier below the Planck length, with the UV self-complete scenario self-consistently confirmed.     

Concrete quantum tunneling spectrum of Schwarzschild black holes

In this paper,a canonical ensemble model for black hole quantum tunneling radiation is introduced.We find that the probability distribution function is the same as the emission rate of a spherical shell in the Parikh-Wilczek tunneling framework.With this model,the probability distribution function corresponding to the emission shell system is calculated.Therefore,the concrete quantum tunneling spectrum of the Schwarzschild black hole is obtained.     

Probing loop quantum gravity with evaporating black holes

This Letter aims at showing that the observation of evaporating black holes should allow the usual Hawking behavior to be distinguished from loop quantum gravity (LQG) expectations. We present a full Monte Carlo simulation of the evaporation in LQG and statistical tests that discriminate between competing models. We conclude that contrarily to what was commonly thought, the discreteness of the area in LQG leads to characteristic features that qualify evaporating black holes as objects that could reveal quantum gravity footprints.     

Exclusion of black hole disaster scenarios at the LHC

The upcoming high energy experiments at the LHC are one of the most outstanding efforts for a better understanding of nature. It is associated with great hopes in the physics community. But there is also some fear in the public, that the conjectured production of mini black holes might lead to a dangerous chain reaction. In this Letter we summarize the most straightforward arguments that are necessary to rule out such doomsday scenarios.     

On the improved dynamics approach in loop quantum black holes

In this paper, we consider the B?hmer–Vandersloot(BV) model of loop quantum black holes obtained from the improved dynamics approach. We adopt the Saini–Singh gauge, in which it was found analytically that the BV spacetime is geodesically complete. We show that black/white hole horizons do not exist in this geodesically complete spacetime. Instead, there exists only an infinite number of transition surfaces, which always separate trapped regions from anti-trapped ones. Comments on the improved d...     

The elliptic interpretation of black holes and quantum mechanics

The old “elliptic interpretation” of the Kruskal manifold is reviewed in the light of quantum mechanics. It is argued that its adoption would require giving up the complex structure of quantum mechanics and working with real Hilbert spaces. This may also be needed in cosmological theories in which the universe is CPT invariant. The cases of de Sitter and anti-de Sitter space are also discussed.     

Dark matter production at the LHC from black hole remnants

We study dark matter production at CERN LHC from black hole remnants (BHR). We find that the typical mass of these BHR at the LHC is ∼5–10 TeV which is heavier than other dark matter candidates, such as axion, axino, neutralino, etc. We propose the detection of this dark matter via single jet production in the process pp → jet + BHR (dark matter) at CERN LHC. We find that for zero impact parameter partonic collisions, the monojet cross section is not negligible in comparison to the standard model background and is much higher than the other dark matter scenarios studied so far. We also find that dσ/dp _T of jet production in this process increases as p _T increases, whereas in all other dark matter scenarios the dσ/dp _T decreases at CERN LHC. This may provide a useful signature for dark matter detection at the LHC. However, we find that when the impact parameter dependent effect of inelasticity is included, the monojet cross section from the above process becomes much smaller than the standard model background and may not be detectable at the LHC.