Comparison of cosmic ray flux at sqrt(s) > 14 TeV with LHC luminosity

TL;DR

This paper compares the cosmic ray flux over 4 billion years with LHC operation, showing cosmic rays produce many times more interactions, suggesting low risk of dangerous exotic particles from the LHC.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of cosmic ray flux and LHC interactions, demonstrating the safety of LHC operations relative to natural cosmic ray exposure.

Findings

Cosmic ray flux over 4 Gyr exceeds LHC interaction rates by orders of magnitude.

The probability of producing dangerous exotic particles like mini-black holes is extremely low.

LHC's hadronic interaction rate is negligible compared to cosmic ray-induced interactions.

Abstract

The high energy cosmic ray flux impinging on the sun and earth for 4 Gyr is compared to the operation of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at design energy and luminosity. It is shown by two different calculations that both the integrated luminosity and the total hadronic interaction rate from the cosmic ray flux of comparable energy are many orders of magnitude larger than that of the LHC operated for 10 years. This study indicates that it is extremely unlikely that pernicious exotic particles, such as mini-black holes, would be produced by the LHC that would destroy the earth.