An interesting and somewhat unsettling paper. Essentially, if some of the
large rolled up dimension theories are true, then it should be possible to make
quantum black holes relatively easily. This is good for learning more about black
hole information processing, but it makes me somewhat nervous that we might get
black hole production on planet - I want my L5 base now!
(there is a popular science explanation in New York times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/science/physical/11BLAC.html)
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-ph/0106219
High Energy Colliders as Black Hole Factories: The End of Short Distance Physics
If the fundamental Planck scale is of order a TeV, as the case in some
extra-dimensions scenarios, future hadron colliders such as the Large Hadron
Collider will be black hole factories. The non-perturbative process of black hole
formation and decay by Hawking evaporation gives rise to spectacular events with
up to many dozens of relatively hard jets and leptons, with a characteristic
ratio of hadronic to leptonic activity of roughly 5:1. The total transverse
energy of such events is typically a sizeable fraction of the beam energy.
Perturbative hard scattering processes at energies well above the Planck scale
are cloaked behind a horizon, thus limiting the ability to probe short distances.
The high energy black hole cross section grows with energy at a rate determined
by the dimensionality and geometry of the extra dimensions. This dependence
therefore probes the extra dimensions at distances larger than the Planck scale.
[ Combine this with the other events of today, and I get a strong suspicion that
we live in a sf novel. ]
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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