Micro black hole

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A micro black hole, also called a quantum mechanical black hole and inevitably a mini black hole, is simply a tiny black hole about which quantum mechanical effects play an important role.

The existence of micro black holes is purely hypothetical but they may eventually be produced on Earth in particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider or detected in cosmic ray collisions in our atmosphere. Such empirical data could greatly aid the development of a theory of quantum gravity.

Micro black holes would be interesting to observe because of their expected short lifespan. Black holes are thought to evaporate over time due to Hawking radiation, and the less the mass, the faster one evaporates. Scientists hope to observe the "death" of a very small black hole. However, Hawking radiation is a controversial theory[1], so stable or growing micro black holes are plausible.

Physicist Brian Greene has suggested that the electron may be a micro black hole; see electron black hole. Small black holes would look like elementary particles because they would be completely defined by their mass, charge and spin. Since the electron is not observed to evaporate, an explanation for the electron's stability is needed.

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The Planck mass

The maximum mass of a micro black hole in which quantum mechanical effects play a dominant role is the Planck mass. This mass is also the value where the black hole's Schwarzschild radius and its Compton wavelength are equal, this distance being equal to the Planck length.

If two aggregates of fermions with mass-energy equal to the Planck mass-energy collided in a particle accelerator within a distance of a Planck length, they would form a micro black hole. However, such a reaction would require energy levels orders of magnitude larger than we can currently produce; with the currently achievable magnetic field strength a ring accelerator would have to be about 1000 light years in diameter to keep such a particle on track. (see Orders of magnitude (temperature)) However, the multiple dimensions postulated by string theory would make gravity many orders of magnitude stronger at small distances. This has led some string theorists to predict micro black hole production at upcoming colliders.

Current predictions for the behavior of a black hole with a mass less than Planck mass are inconsistent and incomplete.

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See also

Classification by type:

Classification by mass:

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External links

  • BBC "Horatiu Nastase says his calculations show that the core of the (particle accelerator) fireball has a striking similarity to a black hole. His work has been published on the pre-print web site" arxiv.org.
  • A. Barrau & J. Grain, The Case for mini black holes : a review of the searches for new physics with micro black holes possibly formed at colliders


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References


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