CERN's LHC Experiments Nix Nano Black Holes

The CMS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has completed a search for microscopic black holes produced in high-energy proton-proton collisions and came up empty. No evidence for their production was found and their production has been excluded up to a black hole mass of 3.5-4.5 TeV (1012 electron volts) in a variety of theoretical models.
 
Microscopic black holes are predicted to exist in some theoretical models that attempt to unify General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics by postulating the existence of extra "curled-up" dimensions, in addition to the three familiar spatial dimensions.

At the high energies of the Large Hadron Collider, such theories predict that particles may collide "closely enough" to be sensitive to these postulated extra dimensionsmwhen the colliding particles could interact gravitationally with strengths similar to those of the other three fundamental forces – the Electromagnetic, Weak and Strong interactions. The two colliding particles might then form a microscopic black hole.

If it was produced this way, a microscopic black hole would evaporate immediately, producing a distinctive spray of sub-atomic particles of normal matter. These would then be observed in the high-precision CMS detector that surrounds the LHC collision point. CMS has searched for such events amongst all the proton-proton collisions recorded during the 2010 LHC running at 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy (3.5 TeV per proton beam).

No experimental evidence for microscopic black holes has been found. This non-observation rules out the existence of microscopic black holes up to a mass of 3.5–4.5 TeV for a range of theoretical models that postulate extra dimensions.

Casey Kazan via CERN

Comments

[Hamy]

Does this mean that large numbers of mathematicians and theoretical physicists have now, in highly complex ways, proven themselves utterly insane ?

[Morten]

Well. Just speculating. Perhaps it did produce black holes.

But they're /not/ decaying like they thought. So since they're produced with low speed relative to Earth they're now cycling around somewhere silently growing bigger until they're noticed at which point it goes really fast consuming Earth. Wonder how long time that process will take ;)

[Bob Greenwade]

Does this rule out all ten- and eleven-dimensional models of the cosmos, or just a large portion of them?

Also, I think it warrants pointing out that just because nano black holes weren't found doesn't mean they weren't there. As Morten pointed out, they might have formed and not decayed as expected. I seriously doubt that they somehow escaped the LHC and continue to exist, but they might have decayed in a way that wasn't detected or even detectable. Admittedly, this is tremendously unlikely, but it is nonetheless possible.

[PerceptualTruth]

Excellent opinions. I agree with the fact that, most likely, our current technology or intelligence hinders our scientists to know of, detect, or even predict such out comes with such wonders of the universe as black holes. To say anything, regarding topics such as this, is "proven" or "a known fact" is outrageous. There are probably variables that are required to understand to even begin to know how black holes work or even the effects of colliding protons.

[Titleist AP2]

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[baseball hats]

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[Ghat]

> large numbers of mathematicians and theoretical physicists have now, in highly complex ways, proven themselves utterly insane ?

Mathematicians, and theoretical physicists can never be "wrong" so long as their math is right, it the jobs of the experimenters to figure out the theory, so yes they have not yet been successful.

G