Black holes from high-energy beam--beam collisions

TL;DR

This paper extends previous work to analyze high-energy collisions of massless particle beams, demonstrating the formation of trapped surfaces in various scenarios, with implications for experiments and cosmology.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical method to determine trapped surfaces in high-energy beam collisions, including complex profiles like fractal beams, extending prior conjectures.

Findings

Trapped surfaces can be analytically determined for various beam profiles.

The results confirm and extend earlier conjectures about black hole formation.

Implications for high-energy physics experiments and cosmological models.

Abstract

Using a recent technique, proposed by Eardley and Giddings, we extend their results to the high-energy collision of two beams of massless particles, i.e. of two finite-front shock waves. Closed (marginally) trapped surfaces can be determined analytically in several cases even for collisions at non-vanishing impact parameter in D\ge 4 space-time dimensions. We are able to confirm and extend earlier conjectures by Yurtsever, and to deal with arbitrary axisymmetric profiles, including an amusing case of ``fractal'' beams. We finally discuss some implications of our results in high-energy experiments and in cosmology.