Search for Microscopic Black Hole Signatures at the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for microscopic black holes at the LHC, analyzing collision data for signals of black hole decay, and sets the first direct experimental limits on black hole production in particle accelerators.

Contribution

First direct limits on microscopic black hole production at a particle accelerator using LHC data at 7 TeV.

Findings

No excess over standard model backgrounds observed.

Limits set on black hole mass between 3.5 and 4.5 TeV.

Constraints applied to models with large extra dimensions.

Abstract

A search for microscopic black hole production and decay in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV has been conducted by the CMS Collaboration at the LHC, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 inverse picobarns. Events with large total transverse energy are analyzed for the presence of multiple high-energy jets, leptons, and photons, typical of a signal expected from a microscopic black hole. Good agreement with the expected standard model backgrounds, dominated by QCD multijet production, is observed for various final-state multiplicities. Limits on the minimum black hole mass are set, in the range 3.5 -- 4.5 TeV, for a variety of parameters in a model with large extra dimensions, along with model-independent limits on new physics in these final states. These are the first direct limits on black hole production at a particle accelerator.