Black holes, TeV-scale gravity and the LHC

TL;DR

This paper reviews the potential for detecting microscopic black holes at the LHC within models of large extra dimensions, which lower the quantum gravity scale to accessible energies.

Contribution

It provides an overview of large extra dimensions models and discusses the implications for black hole formation and evaporation at the LHC.

Findings

Quantum gravity scale could be within LHC reach.

Black hole production could be observable at collider energies.

Potential signatures of microscopic black holes at the LHC.

Abstract

Over the past 15 years models with large extra space-time dimensions have been extensively studied. We have learned from these models that the energy scale of quantum gravity may be many orders of magnitude smaller than the conventional value of 10^19 GeV. This raises the tantalizing prospect of probing quantum gravity effects at the LHC. Of the possible quantum gravity processes at the LHC, the formation and subsequent evaporation of microscopic black holes is one of the most spectacular. We give an overview of some of the fundamental ideas of the large extra dimensions scenarios and the resulting black hole processes at the LHC.