Study of highly-excited string states at the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production and decay of highly excited string states, called string balls, at the LHC, comparing their experimental signatures to those of black holes in TeV-scale gravity scenarios.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation and analysis of string ball production and decay at the LHC, highlighting observable differences and similarities with black holes.

Findings

String balls can be produced at the LHC with high rates.

String balls decay thermally, similar to black holes.

Distinct experimental signatures differentiate string balls from black holes.

Abstract

In TeV-scale gravity scenarios with large extra dimensions, black holes may be produced at future colliders. Good arguments have been made for why general relativistic black holes may be just out of reach of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, in weakly-coupled string theory, highly excited string states - string balls - could be produced at the LHC with high rates and decay thermally, not unlike general relativistic black holes. In this paper, we simulate and study string ball production and decay at the LHC. We specifically emphasize the experimentally-detectable similarities and differences between string balls and general relativistic black holes at a TeV scale.