Exclusion of black hole disaster scenarios at the LHC

Benjamin Koch− , Marcus Bleicher− , and Horst Stöcker−,+

− ITP, Johann Wolfgang Goethe - Universität,
Max von Lauestr. 1
D–60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

+ Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS)

Ruth Moufangstr. 1
D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
&
GSI - Helmholtzzentrum fuer Schwerionenforschung GmbH
Planckstr. 1
D-64291 Darmstadt, Germany
arXiv:0807.3349v1 [hep-ph] 22 Jul 2008

(Dated: July 23, 2008)

The upcoming high energy experiments at the LHC are one of the most outstanding efforts for
a better understanding of nature. It is associated with great hopes in the physics community. But
there is also some fear in the public, that the conjectured production of mini black holes might lead
to a dangerous chain reaction. In this paper we summarize the most straight forward proofs that
are necessary to rule out such doomsday scenarios.

PACS numbers: 12.10.-g

I. MOTIVATION

As an explanation for the large hierarchy between the Planck scale and the electroweak scale some authors postulated
the existence of additional spatial dimensions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. One exciting consequence of such theories is that they
allow for the production of black holes in high energetic particle collisions [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. It was further
conjectured that black holes could have stable final state. This lead to a discussion whether such mini black holes
once they are produced at the large hadron collider (LHC) could be growing dangerously in the inside of the earth
[14, 70]. There exist a number of counter arguments that disfavor such disaster scenarios. Recently those arguments
have been summarized and discussed by a LHC working group [15] who come to the conclusion that ”there is no risk
of any significance whatsoever from such black holes”. In this paper we independently present a short coherent proof
why there is no risk due to mini black holes from TeV particle collisions. First we look at the logically possible black
hole evolution paths. After this we show for every endpoint of the paths, why mini black holes can not be dangerously
growing. For this we use arguments which are also present in [15], but we also bring forward new arguments concerning
the rapidity distribution of black hole remnants from cosmic rays and the influence of a strongly growing black hole
mass on the escape velocity of the mini black hole.

II. BLACK HOLES IN LARGE EXTRA DIMENSIONS

High energy experiments like those the large hadron collider (LHC) play a crucial role for a better understanding of
the fundamental laws of physics. One hope is that those experiments can discriminate between several approaches that
try to extend the physical framework of the standard model [9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22]. In some models [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
it was conjectured that the hierarchy problem between the Planck scale mP l ≈ 1019 GeV and the electroweak scale
mZ ≈ 90 GeV by postulating the existence of additional spatial dimensions. In reference [1, 2, 3] this is done by
assuming that the additional spatial dimensions are compactified on a small radius R and further demanding that all
known particles live on a 3 + 1 dimensional sub-manifold (3−brane). They find that the fundamental mass Mf and
the Planck mass mP l are related by

m2P l = Mfd+2 Rd . (1)

Within this approach it is possible to have a fundamental gravitational scale of Mf ∼ 1 TeV. The huge hierarchy
between mZ and mP l would then come as a result of our ignorance regarding extra spatial dimensions. Due to the
comparatively low fundamental scale Mf ∼ TeV and the hoop conjecture [23], it might be possible to produce such
objects with mass of approximately 1 TeV in future colliders [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. This can only be the case
 2
√
when the invariant scattering energy s reaches the relevant energy scale Mf . The higher dimensional Schwarzschild
radius [8, 24] of these black holes is given by
d+1
16π(2π)d

d+1 1 M
RH = , (2)
(d + 2)Ad+2 Mf Mf

where Ad+2 is the area of the d + 2 dimensional unit sphere

2π (3+d)/2
Ad+2 =
. (3)
Γ 3+d2

A semi-classical approximation for the BH production cross section is given by

2 √
σ(M ) ≈ πRH ξ( s − Mf ) , (4)

where
√ the function ξ ensures √ that black holes are only produced above the Mf threshold. The function ξ is one
for s ≫ Mf and zero for s ≈ Mf . In many simulations ξ is replaced by a theta function. The validity of this
approximation has been debated in [25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35] and the observable formation of a event
horizon has been questioned [36, 37]. However, other improved calculations including the diffuseness of the scattering
particles (as opposed to point particles) and the angular momentum of the collision (as opposed to head on collisions)
as well as string inspired arguments only lead to modifications of (4) which are of the order of one [38, 39, 40, 41]. This
would open up a unique possibility of studying gravitational effects at very small distance scales in the laboratory.
Such observations of gravitational physics at the tiny scales of the quantum world could give direction to the presently
biggest quest of theoretical physics: A unified description of quantum physics and gravity.
At the same time there is a growing concern in the public. ”Could such monstrous objects like mini black holes
(once they are produced at LHC) eat up the entire world?” This question controversially discussed in blogs and
online-video-portals [14]. Similar fears (with strangelets instead of black holes) have already been stirred up when the
previous generation of collider was built [42]. Instead of ignoring this concern we take it serious and try to discuss the
issue without provoking an emotional palaver. We explain from theoretical arguments why such a disaster is generally
believed to be impossible. But we even go one step further and discuss the question: ”What if the theory is wrong?”
We show that even if the current theories are wrong, there is no danger as long as the ”true theory” is not completely
crazy [43].

III. TAKING MINI BLACK HOLES SERIOUS

The idea of a quasi stable black hole final state has been frequently studied in the literature [44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49,
50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69] which partially refer to astrophysical black
holes and partially refer to mini black holes. In order to come to the prediction of possibly dangerous mini black holes
one has to make very specific assumptions on the composition of space time and the laws of physics at the relevant
energy scale ∼ 1TeV. We now give a simple estimate that suggests that mini black holes should be taken seriously:
Lets assume there are d extra dimensions and the LHC produces a M ∼ Mf ∼ 1 TeV black hole which gets stuck
somewhere in the middle of the earth. If this BH would eat and keep everything that (by thermal motion with velocity
v̂ ≈ 103 m/s) passes it’s way its growth rate would be proportional to its surface area A
2/(d+1) 2/(d+1)
16π(2π)d
 
1 M
A(M ) = 4π . (5)
(d + 2)Ad+2 Mf2 Mf

With the area (5) and the particle density in the earth ρ ≈ 5g/cm3 the growth rate is
dM
= v̂ρA(M ) . (6)
dt
As can be seen in figure (1), this simple scenario suggests that the black hole would grow rapidly for one extra
dimension. For one extra dimension this results into an exponential growth [70]. According to this estimate with one
extra dimension, the earth would be accreted into the black hole in 27 years. It also shows that the existence of more
than one extra dimension would increase this time to the save period of 1016 years. If this would be true, it would mean
that the lifetime of the earth could is shortened to less than thirty years after the LHC produced its first black hole
in one extra dimension. Although it has recently been argued that mini black holes are very unlikely in brane world
 3

1x108

1x107

BH mass [GeV]
1x106

1x105

d=1
1x104 d=2
d=3
d=6

1000
0 2 4 6 8
Years since BH production [a]

FIG. 1: Growth rate of mini black holes according to equation (6) for d = 1, 2, 3, 6.

scenarios with only one extra dimension [71], the result of the above scenario is still quite provoking and shows that
the topic should be taken serious. Instead of arguing about the parameters, limitations, and oversimplifications of this
scenario a more general and model independent study is needed. Recently an extensive study on the (im)possiblity
of dangerous mini black holes has been given in [15]. However, in this paper we want to concentrate on a short but
watertight argument.

IV. POSSIBLE BLACK HOLE EVOLUTION PATHS

The logical structure of the assumptions that are relevant for such a study is shown in (I). We will now discuss
the tree structure in (I) step by step. Every branch of the tree ends with a discussion (D0-D4) which can be found
at the end of this section. In those discussions we explain with either theoretical or experimental arguments why we
think that the discussed branch does not have any disastrous consequences.
In order to open up the possibility of producing mini black holes in a 14 TeV collider, one has to assume the existence
of large extra dimensions with a fundamental mass scale in the ∼TeV range. Next one has to assume that quantum
gravity effects do not spoil the conjecture that classical closed timelike curves lead to the formation of a black hole
event horizon. If all this is given then the mini black hole could in principle follow three different paths in its further
development. First, it could emit high energetic radiation (Eem ) in a short time scale (tem ) such a comparison to
the accretion energy (Eac ) and accretion time (tac ≈ 105 fm/c) still shows a net emission (Eem /tem > Eac /tac ). This
is what most theoreticians predict and it would be the case for both, the bolding phase and the Hawking phase. In
the tree (I) this possibility is denoted as ”Strong radiation”. As discussed in (D0) such a black hole can not cause
any danger. Second it could behave purely classical, which also means that it does not emit any radiation but eats
everything that comes along. By this it could acquire some net charge. In the tree this possibility is denoted as
”No radiation” but as discussed in (D1) mini black holes with this property are ruled out by high energetic cosmic
ray observations. The third possibility is a relatively weak radiating black hole (not necessarily forming a black hole
remnant). This means that the mini black hole eats in average more matter than it emits Eac /tac > Eem /tem > 0,
it is therefore labeled by ”Weak radiation”. If this radiation takes the form of subsequent particle emissions into
random directions (as it would be for a Hawking-like process), then the black holes from a cosmic rays would have
a nonzero rapidity distribution. This possibility is labeled by ”Rapidity width”. In discussion (D2) it is shown that
such black holes can not be dangerous. The possibility that the black hole does not radiate subsequently into random
directions is labeled by ”No Rapidity width”. For this last case one has to consider three different possible scenarios.
Those scenarios assume different emission timescales (tem ) for the black hole radiation. The first possibility is that
this timescale of the black hole is smaller than the time that a thermal black hole with velocity (v) needs to propagate
through a nucleon with radius rp . This branch of the tree with (tem < rp /c) is labeled by ”Fast emission” and as
discussed in (D3) such black holes can not be dangerous. The second possibility is a ”Moderate emission timescale
 4

Large extra dimensions

Black holes

Strong
“ radiation
” “Weak radiation ” No radiation
Eem
> Etac
ac Eac
> Etem
em
>0 (Eem = 0)
tem tac

D1
D0

Rapidity width No rapidity width

D2

Fast emission Moderate emission Slow emission

tem < rp /v rp /v < tem < lp /c lp /v < tem

D3 D4 D1

TABLE I: The mini black hole tree

with rp /v < tem < lp /c where lp is the average distance between nucleons in the earth or on a denser object such
as a white dwarf. In discussion (D4) we show such black holes can not shorten the lifetime of our earth. The third
possibility is a ”Slow emission” with lp /c < tem . Since such black holes acquire a net charge during their evolution.
one can also apply the discussion (D1) and exclude any danger. Therefore, every possible branch of the tree can be
met by a salving discussion.

V. DISKUSSIONS

D0: the black hole temperature

Most theoretical models for large extra dimensions predict that the mini black holes emit high energetic radiation in
a very short timescale. The temperature of this radiation was derived from the quantum theory in curved spacetime
[72, 73]. This so called Hawking temperature is inverse proportional to the radius of the black hole [8]

d+1
TH = . (7)
4πRH
The timescale of a single emission can be straight forward estimated tem ≈ RH /c. Therefore the decay rate of a mini
black hole in a canonical picture is
dM d+1
≈ −c 2 . (8)
dt 4RH

Comparing this decay rate to the growth rate in equation (6) and carefully converting the units, one finds for instance
for M = 10Mf = 104 GeV that the decay rate (8) exceeds the growth rate (6) for any number of dimensions by at
least thirty orders of magnitude. From this estimate it is clear that mini black holes that are produced on the earth
can never grow.
 5

D1: the black hole charge

In this discussion we rely on the logical imperative that those mini black holes that originate from the collapse of
charged particles or that swallow charged particles also have effectively some charge. Classically this charge is
P
i |qi |ti
|Qe | = P , (9)
k tk

where qi is the charge of the black hole at each step of its evolution and ti is the duration
√ of this step of the evolution.
If the black hole charge changes randomly at any step of the evolution it scales like n where n is the number of
steps. But even in the unlikely case that the black hole always tends to neutralize in the following step after obtaining
the charge |qi | ≥ 1/3 (for a quark), this still results in an effective charge |Qe | ≥ 0.16. If such black holes would
be produced at the 14 TeV center of mass energy at the LHC, then they also must have been produced all the time
from high energetic cosmic ray events which have a center of mass energy of up to 400 TeV. In this discussion we will
show that the fact that the earth still exists already proves that the black holes that are possibly produced at the
LHC can not be dangerous for the earth because the black holes that are produced in cosmic rays have not done any
harm (not even the dinosaurs). There is only one difference between the black holes from cosmic rays and those in
the laboratory: The black holes in the laboratory might have a very low kinetic energy in the rest frame of the earth,
while the black holes from cosmic rays always have at least a momentum of

M2   m 
p
pe ≥ 1±O , (10)
2mp M

where mp is the mass of a proton. This means that a black hole from a cosmic ray with a rest-mass of ∼ 1 TeV has a
kinetic energy of at least ∼ 0.5 106 GeV. The energy loss of a black hole with an effective electrical charge |Qe | and
a mass M can be calculated with the help of the Bethe-Bloch formula

κ |Qe |2 Z 1 β 2 Tm
  
dE
= log 2m e 2 , (11)
dx A0 β 2 2 I (1 − β 2 )
p
2 2
1 − β 2 ) + m2e /M 2 ), Z is the average
p
where β = 1 − M 2 /(M 2 + Ekin 2 ), T
m = 2me β /(1 − β )1/(1 + 2me /(M
charge of the target, I is the average electronic excitation levels of the target, me is the electron mass and κ/A0 is
the standard energy loss parameter of the target. The curves have a minimum at relatively low kinetic energies and
a logarithmic growth for higher energies. It also shows that a higher effective charge also means a higher energy loss
since the energy loss is ∼ Q2e . By only taking the minimum energy loss of those curves one finds that ∼ 1 TeV black
holes can be stopped in the earth if they effectively carry Qe > 0.4 elementary charges. The whole argument can be
extended by replacing the earth by the sun which shows that mini black holes with an effective charge of Qe > 0.04.
Since the expected effective charge is |Qe | ≥ 0.16, we can conclude that the existence of our solar system proofs that
mini black holes can not be dangerous because they have already been produced (if they exist) and stopped inside the
earth (sun) without causing any damage. Although this argument is sufficient to rule out dangerous charged black
holes we want to mention that it underestimates the true stopping power by far. Especially taking into account the
dense core of the sun and the process of pair creation in the Bethe-Bloch formula increases the effect by at least three
orders of magnitude [15].

D2: the black hole rapidity

This discussion relies on two assumptions. The first assumption is that BH events that are produced from cosmic
rays in the upper atmosphere, are highly excited states which emit high energetic radiation before the reach the earth.
This radiation could be both originate from the bolding and the Hawking phase of the black hole evolution. The
second assumption is that this evaporation slows down or stops completely as soon as the black hole mass approaches
the fundamental mass scale Mf . This means that for instance black holes of initially ∼ 100 TeV mass emit particles
until they approach the remnant mass of ∼ 1 TeV. Those emissions can speed up or slow down the black hole and
lead in total to the broadening of the initially √
sharp spectrum. A black hole event from a cosmic ray with the energy
Ee corresponds to a center of mass energy of s with
s
Ee = . (12)
2mp
 6

The center of mass frame and the earths reference frame can be transformed into each other by performing a rapidity
shift of
 2 
1 s yshif t = 5.2 at 14 T eV
yshif t = ln ⇒ (13)
2 m4p yshif t = 11.9 at 400 T eV .

From the above mentioned assumptions for the evaporation process of a black hole, an initially perfectly determined
rapidity undergoes a significant broadening. Thus, if the black hole evaporation stops or slows down, it still leaves its
fingerprint on the momentum of the remaining black hole. A numerical simulation of such rapidity distributions for
black hole remnants [63] with different initial energies is shown in figure (2). The rapidity distributions (2) can be

14 TeV
0.4
40 TeV
320 TeV
Normalized BHR event rate

0.3

0.2

0.1

-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
Rapidity

FIG. 2: Distribution of black hole remnant rapidities for initial collision energies of σ(14T eV ) = 1, σ(40T eV ) = 1.7, and
σ(400T eV ) = 2.6. The final mass of the black hole remnant is set to 1 TeV.

fitted by gaussians

1 (y − yshif t )2
 
dρ
∼ exp − , (14)
dy 2 σ2

which have the typical width of at least σ > 1. Hence, even in the shifted reference frame (13) there exists a small
but non zero fraction of the BHs has zero rapidity

dρ 1 × 10−6 at 14T eV
(y = 0) ∼ (15)
dy 4 × 10−4 at 400T eV

Taking a (low) BH efficiency in UHECR collisions of 10−4 and the UHECR event rates [74, 75, 76] one finds that the
earth (sun) should have experienced 3 1010 (3 1014 ) BH -events with approximately zero rapidity in their history. Only
if the black hole rapidity width would be less than 0.3 there would be a chance that no such event already occurred
in our solar system. Like in the previous discussion we can conclude that black holes that meet the assumptions of
this discussion can not be harmful at LHC because they would have been harmful already (from cosmic rays).

D3: the black hole with fast emission time (or the impossible black hole)

For this discussion we assumed to be on the middle branch of the tree (I) with a weakly radiating black hole with

Eac /tac > Eem /tem > 0 . (16)

The average distance between the nuclei in the inside of the earth is lp . Therefore, the average timescale it takes for a
black hole to accrete one nucleon (or at least the fraction α of a nucleon) is tac = lp /v ≈ lp /c. The second assumption
 7

for this discussion is that the average timescale for a particle emission (single or multiple particles) of the black hole
is shorter than the time it takes for the black hole to propagate through a single nucleon tem < rp /c, where rp is the
radius of the nucleon. Those two length scales differ by a factor of more than a factor of 105

105 < lp /rp = tac /tem . (17)

Therefore, one can read off the first inequality of this discussion that Eac > 105 Eem . Since the accretion energy is
limited from above by the nucleon mass ∼ 1 GeV, and the emission energy for charged elementary particles is limited
from below by the electron mass ∼ 511 keV, one sees that this scenario for a growing black hole is simply not possible.

D4: the black hole with moderate emission time

Before going into the discussion one has to remember that the window of the allowed emission times in this scenario
is really very small, if at all existent. The inequality rp /v < tem < lp /c leaves after taking c = 3×108m/s, v ≈ 104 m/s,
lp ≈ γ × 10−9 m, and γ ≈ 100 (for cosmic rays) only the shady region at the limit of the estimates of tem ≈ 10−19 s.
Taking higher densities like in a White dwarf, this inequality does not hold any more and one is either in the slow
emision scenario or in the fast emission scenario. Therefore one might already rule out any danger from this scenario
at this point, but we will follow a different path now, where we don’t have to rely on the above inequality. In the
following discussion we will show that several types of stars could not exist if the mini black holes which are produced
by high energetic cosmic rays would be dangerous. This is done by comparing the velocity of an originally TeV black
hole after passing through the star to the escape velocity of this star. As soon as the escape velocity is higher than
the black hole velocity we know that the black hole would be gravitationally trapped. If such a trapped black hole
would be dangerous one would not have the chance to observe a relevant number of this kind of star. In this proof we
assume that a black hole can accrete some fraction 1 > α > 0 of a nucleon when it propagates through it. Remember
that the nucleon radius rp is much larger than the black hole radius rH . For this accretion the mass growth (dM )
after propagating a distance (dx) in a star with average density ρ is at least

dM (x)
= π(rp + RH )2 ρα ≥ πrp2 ρ ⇒ M (x) ≥ xπrp2 ρα + Mf . (18)
dx
The fraction α is dominated by the possible strong interactions between the mini black hole which might have inherited
a color charge from a parton and the rest of the nucleon. It does therefore not depend on the black hole radius rH
and thus, this solution is independent of the number of extra dimensions d and good for masses below 5 × 109 GeV.
Combining this equation with the kinetic energy of a TeV black hole Ekin ≥ Mf /(2mp ) and the equation for relativistic
masses gives the velocity of the mini black hole after a distance x. Setting x to the diameter of the star we find the
velocities which are compared to according escape velocities in figure (3). Please note that this decrease of the black
hole velocity is solely an effect of the growing black hole mass and other speed diminishing interactions are not even
taken into account. As can bee seen in figure (3), the existence of old (> 1gyr) white dwarfs is in contradiction to
a dangerous black hole in this scenario. Not all eutron stars can be used as an argument because the ultra high
energetic cosmic rays undergo deflection and deceleration in the large magnetic fields that around neutron stars [15].
However, the argument with the white dwarfs works as long as the fraction α is bigger than 4 × 10−5 .
But what happens when the fraction is smaller than 4 × 10−5 ? The first argument is a theoretical argument and
states that the lightest hadronic color neutral final state after the black hole - nucleon reaction is a pion which carries
∼ 140 MeV and thus α has to be bigger than 0.14. For the second argument one can look at the growth rate of a
mini black hole with a thermal velocity of ∼ 103 m/s. It turns out that it would take 1036 years for a mini black hole
to accrete the earth, which is 1026 times longer than the age of the universe. More conservatively one should say that
it would definitely take longer than 1019 years for the black hole, to grow to the size of a proton (the validity region
of eqation (18)) which is still a billion times longer than the age of our universe. Hence we have shown with three
different arguments that also for this scenario there is no danger due to mini black holes from the LHC.

VI. SUMMARY

In this paper we reviewed the framework for the conjectured production of mini black holes at the LHC and we have
motivated the necessity of analyzing the possible danger that could come with the production of mini black holes.
After this we discussed the (logically) possible black hole evolution paths. Then we discussed every single outcome of
those paths (D0-D4) and showed that none of the physically sensible paths (D0-D4) can lead to a black hole disaster
at the LHC.
 8

1x108

1x107 BH velocity

velocity (m/s)
1x106 Escape velocity

1x105

1x104

1000

moon earth sun red dwarf white dwarf neutron star

FIG. 3: Escape velocity compared to the velocity of an originally TeV black hole after propagating through the moon, the
earth, the sun, a red dwarf, a white dwarf, or a neutron star. For the radii and densities average values were taken and α was
set to one.

This work was supported by GSI. Many thanks to Michelangelo Mangano for his comments. The authors also want
to thank Rainer Plaga for his motivation and discussion.

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