Jet Extinction from Non-Perturbative Quantum Gravity Effects

TL;DR

This paper explores how non-perturbative quantum gravity effects could cause high-energy jets to be suppressed at the LHC, using a modified event generator to model potential observable extinction effects.

Contribution

It introduces a Monte Carlo simulation incorporating quantum gravity-induced jet extinction, providing a new way to test quantum gravity effects at collider energies.

Findings

High transverse momentum jet suppression could be detectable at the LHC.

Extinction effects could be observed if the quantum gravity scale is within half the collision energy.

The model provides a framework for future experimental searches for quantum gravity signatures.

Abstract

The infrared-ultraviolet properties of quantum gravity suggest on very general grounds that hard short distance scattering processes are highly suppressed for center of mass scattering energies beyond the fundamental Planck scale. If this scale is not too far above the electroweak scale, these non-perturbative quantum gravity effects could be manifest as an extinction of high transverse momentum jets at the LHC. To model these effects we implement an Extinction Monte Carlo modification of the Pythia event generator based on a large damping Veneziano form factor modification of hard QCD scattering processes. Using this we illustrate the leading effects of extinction on the inclusive jet transverse momentum spectrum at the LHC. We estimate that an extinction mass scale of up to roughly half the center of mass beam collision energy could be probed with high statistics data.