Is the Large Hadron Collider a black hole creater?

Question

Does anyone know where i can find more info about the Large Hadron Collider. I need to do more research but from what little research i have done, This has the potential to open a new realm of physics, create black holes on demand, change matter on a sub-atomic level, kill us all, and beyond. I also heard it through the grape vine that this thursday will mark the 1st test of the LHC's ability to create a mini black hole for scientists to study.

Answer 1

as we don't have a unified theory for gravity and quantum mechanics, it cannot be ruled out, but it is highly unlikely.

Even if one were created, it would be fantastically small, which means that

1) it's cross section is also tiny, and it's gravitational reach is small, so it will be unlikely to interact with other particles. It's only way of interacting is with gravity, which is a very weak force compared to the other forces at play - a particle would have to almost be in the same location as the micro-hole to interact with it

2) Hawking radiation - it's likely that these micro-holes will evaporate quickly

3) due to Hiesenburg, micro black holes should be created all over the universe all the time (at very, very,small scales) - why aren't they? Whatever underlying mechanisms preventing this may also prevent them here.

Answer 2

I don't think there will be collisions that soon.  You have a bit longer to live.

Answer 3

It's more about anti-matter creation than black holes.

Answer 4

The LHC is intended to look for the Higg's boson and physics beyond the standard model of particle physics such as super symmetry and dark matter/energy candidates. The standard model does not predict that the LHC will produce mini-Black Holes; however, if physics beyond the standard model is found to hold, then mini-Black Holes might be possible. These mini-Black holes might be produced at a rate in the order of one per second. According to the some calculations, these ‘holes’ are harmless because they will quickly decay via ‘Hawking radiation’ and explode into a shower of particles. The problem with ‘Hawking radiation’ is that it too is unproven physics and, thus, might not be a correct explanation for the disappearance of mini-Black Holes. An unlikely, accumulation of mini-Black Holes could be a ‘small’ problem.

Below I will detail some of the physics that the LHC is attempting to explore.

The weak interaction, as you know, is mediated by spin-1 bosons which act as force carriers between quarks and/or leptons. There are three of these intermediate vector bosons, which were all discovered at CERN in 1983. They are the charged bosons W+ and W- and the neutral Z0. Their masses are measured to be: -

M(W) = 80.3 Gev/c² and M(Z) = 91.2 Gev/c²

which gives their ranges as: -

R(W) ≈ R(Z) ≈ 2 x 10^-3 fm

Their decay modes are as follows: -

W+ -> l+ + vl

W- -> l- + vl'

Z0 -> l+ + l-

Where the l's stand for leptons and the v's for neutrinos with the prime ' indicating an anti-neutrino.

This introduction sets the scene for what follows!

The intermediate vector bosons gain their mass from the Higgs boson. Please allow me to explain.

During the nineteen-sixties the theoretical physicists Glashow, Salam and Weinberg developed a theory which unified the electromagnetic and the weak nuclear forces. This theory is known as the ‘electroweak’ theory, it predicted the neutral vector boson Z0, and weak nuclear force reactions arising from its exchange, in what are known as neutral current reactions. The theory also accounted for the heavy charged bosons W+ and W-, required for the mediation of all observed weak interactions, known as charged current reactions. These particles were discovered in 1983.This unified theory is a ‘gauge invariance’ theory, which means that if the components of its underlying equations are transformed, in position or potential, they still predict exactly the same physics. Because the force carrying particles (Z0, W+ and W-), of this theory, are massive spin-1 bosons a spin-0 boson is required to complete the theory. This spin-0 boson is the as yet unobserved ‘Higgs’ boson.

The masses of the force carrying bosons (Z0, W+ and W-), for the electroweak theory, are derived from their interaction with the scalar Higgs field. Unlike other physical fields, the Higgs field has a non-zero value in the vacuum state, labelled φ0, and furthermore this value is not invariant under gauge transformation. Hence, this gauge invariance is referred to as a ‘hidden’ or ‘spontaneously broken’ symmetry. The Higgs field has three main consequences’. The first, is that the electroweak force carrying bosons (Z0, W+ and W-) can acquire mass in the ratio: -

M(W) =cosθ(W)

_____

M(Z)

Where θ(W) Is the electroweak mixing angle. These masses arise from the interactions of the gauge fields with the non-zero vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field. Secondly, there are electrically neutral quanta H0, called Higgs bosons, associated with the Higgs field, just as photons are associated with the electromagnetic field. Thirdly, the Higgs field throws light on the origin of the quark and lepton masses. In the absence of the Higgs field the requirements of gauge invariance on the masses of spin-½ fermions (quarks and leptons etc,) would set them at zero for parity violating interactions (non-mirror image interactions). Parity is a conserved quantity in strong nuclear force and electromagnetic interactions but is violated in weak nuclear force interactions, which would make quark and lepton masses zero in this later case. However, interactions with the Higgs field can generate fermion masses due to the non-zero expectation value φ0 of this field, as well as with interactions with the Higgs bosons. These interactions have a dimensionless coupling constant g(Hff) related to the fermions mass m(f) by the expression: -

g(Hff) = √ (√2G(f)m(f) ²)

Where G(f) is the Fermi coupling constant and f is any quark or lepton flavour. However, this theory, that the fermion masses are mediated by their interaction with the Higgs field, does not predict their mass m(f). However, with the future discovery of the Higgs boson the above equation can be used to confirm the observed coupling constant g(Hff).

At CERN, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will search for the Higgs boson at an energy of up to 1 TeV by colliding protons in the reaction: -

p + p -> H0 + X

Where X is any state allowed by the usual conservation laws.

The upper atmosphere is a much more energetic elementary particle physics laboratory than the LHC. Thus, if mini-black holes are created in collisions in the upper atmosphere, then, they rapidly decay - or they are simply not produced at all, in high-energy particle collisions, and the standard model is correct! I do not think that mini-black holes are going to be a problem at the LHC - if they are even produced!

Answer 5

Do not worry as gravity is the only force capable of creating a black hole...  

Answer 6

your grapevine is a misinformed, useless source of information. the Hadron Collider will help unlock secrets of the universe. It is not a black hole maker, It is bumping atoms together, that's all. In one gram of hydrogen, there are 23 thousand million billion (23 x 10*23) atoms.

One gram cannot a black hole form. Look up the site on the Internet.

They post news updates. You should be waiting with excitement to find out what is being learned.

Answer 7

the LHC is NOT going to create a black hole that will destroy the earth, if you want to learn about why this won't happen check out the source link below(there is a "listen" link on the site to download an audio version)

Answer 8

Yes it does create a miniscule black hole but from what I read in the National Geographic a couple months back, it won't be dangerous to anything.  From what's predicted it will disintegrate in .00000000000001 nanoseconds (something crazy like that) so no need to worry.

Answer 9

No matter how high the energies of particles of man-made accelerators, those of some cosmic rays will always be higher.  Thus if the LHC constitutes a danger, so would cosmic rays.

I would like to understand more about what is meant with a "black hole" of this nature.  The normal definiition of such a thing is that is is a mass of radius satisfying the Schwarzschild condition, but "radius" is a purely classical concept.  What kind of reaction creates it?   Maybe somebody would like to comment (preferably without wicki pages, please).

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Thanks, David, for your very informative summary from which I learned some new things.  The interest in mini-black holes is considerable because they are the best chance, so I gather, of getting within reach of an object in which gravitational and quantum effects are at equal footing.  A good article is here, for those interested:

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/...

I am not a particle physicist, but I find on the technical level this book very readable: "Grand Unified Theories" by Graham G. Ross, which covers much of what Dave talks about, in particular the subject of symmetry breaking of the Higgs field and how it leads to the predictions of lepton masses, etc.  I am still wondering about the mini-black holes, though, and would like to know more about those.  Thanks again, Dave. Great answer!

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Of course, a mini black hole must be defined as something along the lines of a mass equal to the Planck mass (or a Schwarzschild radius equal to its Compton radius). I forgot about that; how stupid!  That's about 10^19 GeV according to A. Zee.  Can the LHC create that? That's huge.

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More to David again:

I  wrote a research paper on local gauge theory when I was a student, which I recall was basically on applications of Noether's theorem, which is one of the best things I have ever learned  Certainly no big deal, but the professor ridiculed the section on Noether's theorem and gave me a C.  Now, as I recall from about what seems a hundred years ago, it may have explained the symmetry breaking of the Higgs field this way: You assumed local gauge invariance of some field, like in this case the scalar Higgs field, which, as Ross shows, contains a quartic term in the Lagrangean.  In order to make that consistent with the requirement of a conserved energy four-vector (a current), which you got out of an action principle, you had to introduce coupling to some vector field, like the electromagnetic field.  The symmetry-breaking and the masses then follow.   Nice to recall all that stuff again.