Catfish: A Monte Carlo simulator for black holes at the LHC

We present a new Fortran Monte Carlo generator to simulate black hole events at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The generator interfaces to the PYTHIA Monte Carlo fragmentation code. The physics of the BH generator includes, but not limited to, inelasticity effects, exact field emissivities, corrections to semiclassical black hole evaporation and gravitational energy loss at formation. These features are essential to realistically reconstruct the detector response and test different models of black hole formation and decay at the LHC.Comment: 22 pages, 8 eps figures. Matches version already published in Computer Physics Communications. CATFISH code and documentation are available at http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/GR/catfis

QCD and spin effects in black hole airshowers

In models with large extra dimensions, black holes may be produced in high-energy particle collisions. We revisit the physics of black hole formation in extensive airshowers from ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, focusing on collisional QCD and black hole emissivity effects. New results for rotating black holes are presented. Monte Carlo simulations show that QCD effects and black hole spin produce no observable signatures in airshowers. These results further confirm that the main characteristics of black hole-induced airshowers do not depend on the fine details of micro black hole models.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Simulations of black hole air showers in cosmic ray detectors

We present a comprehensive study of TeV black hole events in Earth's atmosphere originated by cosmic rays of very high energy. An advanced fortran Monte Carlo code is developed and used to simulate black hole extensive air showers from ultrahigh-energy neutrino-nucleon interactions. We investigate the characteristics of these events, compare the black hole air showers to standard model air showers, and test different theoretical and phenomenological models of black hole formation and evolution. The main features of black hole air showers are found to be independent of the model considered. No significant differences between models are likely to be observed at fluorescence telescopes and/or ground arrays. We also discuss the tau ``double bang'' signature in black hole air showers. We find that the energy deposited in the second bang is too small to produce a detectable peak. Our results show that the theory of TeV-scale black holes in ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays leads to robust predictions, but the fine prints of new physics are hardly to be investigated through atmospheric black hole events in the near future.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

Black hole and brane production in TeV gravity: A review

In models with large extra dimensions particle collisions with center-of-mass energy larger than the fundamental gravitational scale can generate non-perturbative gravitational objects such as black holes and branes. The formation and the subsequent decay of these super-Planckian objects would be detectable in particle colliders and high energy cosmic ray detectors, and have interesting implications in cosmology and astrophysics. In this paper we present a review of black hole and brane production in TeV-scale gravity.Comment: 40 pages, 14 figures, submitted to the Int. Jou. Mod. Phys.

Geometrodynamical Formulation of Two-Dimensional Dilaton Gravity

Two-dimensional matterless dilaton gravity with arbitrary dilatonic potential can be discussed in a unitary way, both in the Lagrangian and canonical frameworks, by introducing suitable field redefinitions. The new fields are directly related to the original spacetime geometry and in the canonical picture they generalize the well-known geometrodynamical variables used in the discussion of the Schwarzschild black hole. So the model can be quantized using the techniques developed for the latter case. The resulting quantum theory exhibits the Birkhoff theorem at the quantum level.Comment: 15 pages, LATE

How classical are TeV-scale black holes?

We show that the Hawking temperature and the entropy of black holes are subject to corrections from two sources: the generalized uncertainty principle and thermal fluctuations. Both effects increase the temperature and decrease the entropy, resulting in faster decay and ``less classical'' black holes. We discuss the implications of these results for TeV-scale black holes that are expected to be produced at future colliders.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, REVTeX style. Extra comments and references to match version accepted to Classical and Quantum Gravit

Quantum Electromagnetic Wormholes and Geometrical Description of the Electric Charge

I present and discuss a class of solutions of the Wheeler-de Witt equation describing wormholes generated by coupling of gravity to the electromagnetic field for Kantowski-Sachs and Bianchi I spacetimes. Since the electric charge can be viewed as electric lines of force trapped in a finite region of spacetime, these solutions can be interpreted as the quantum corresponding of the Ein\-stein\--Ro\-sen\--Mis\-ner\--Whee\-ler electromagnetic geon.Comment: 13 pages, PLAIN TEX, Report No: SISSA 92/94/A (to appear in Phys. Rev. D15

Hawking emission of gravitons in higher dimensions: non-rotating black holes

We compute the absorption cross section and the total power carried by gravitons in the evaporation process of a higher-dimensional non-rotating black hole. These results are applied to a model of extra dimensions with standard model fields propagating on a brane. The emission of gravitons in the bulk is highly enhanced as the spacetime dimensionality increases. The implications for the detection of black holes in particle colliders and ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray air showers are briefly discussed.Comment: 16 pages, no figures, revtex4. v3: Misprints in Tables and four-dimensional power for fermions correcte

Bounds on large extra dimensions from the simulation of black hole events at the LHC

If large extra dimensions exist, the Planck scale may be as low as a TeV and microscopic black holes may be produced in high-energy particle collisions at this energy scale. We simulate microscopic black hole formation at the Large Hadron Collider and compare the simulation results with recent experimental data by the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration. The absence of observed black hole events in the experimental data allows us to set lower bounds on the Planck scale and various parameters related to microscopic black hole formation for a number ($3-6$) of extra dimensions. Our analysis sets lower bounds on the fundamental Planck scale ranging from 0.6 TeV to 4.8 TeV for black holes fully decaying into Standard Model particles and 0.3 TeV to 2.8 TeV for black holes settling down to a remnant, depending on the minimum allowed black hole mass at formation. Formation of black holes with mass less than 5.2 TeV to 6.5 TeV (SM decay) and 2.2 TeV to 3.4 TeV (remnant) is excluded at 95\% C.L. Our analysis shows consistency with and difference from the CMS results.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure