Could any black holes be produced at the LHC?

TL;DR

This paper proposes quantum gravity modifications to black hole production cross sections at the LHC, explaining why such black holes might not be observed in collider experiments but could be detected via cosmic rays.

Contribution

It introduces an effective ultraviolet cutoff to modify black hole production cross sections, providing a more realistic model that accounts for quantum gravity effects.

Findings

Modified cross sections approach black disk form at high energy

Cross section growth depends on ultraviolet cutoff and dimensions

Explains absence of black hole signals at LHC but potential detection in cosmic rays

Abstract

We introduce analytical quantum gravity modifications of the production cross section for terascale black holes by employing an effective ultraviolet cut off $l$. We find the new cross sections approach the usual "black disk" form at high energy, while they differ significantly near the fundamental scale from the standard increase with respect to $s$. We show that the heretofore discontinuous step function used to represent the cross section threshold can realistically be modeled by two functions representing the incoming and final parton states in a high energy collision. The growth of the cross section with collision energy is thus a unique signature of $l$ and number of spatial dimensions $d$. Contrary to the classical black disk result, our cross section is able to explain why black holes might not be observable in LHC experiments while they could be still at the reach of ultra-high energy cosmic ray events.