Black holes at LHC? Or maybe just scaled up bottonium?

The latest Tommaso Dorigo's posting has a rather provocative title: The Plot Of The Week - A Black Hole Candidate. Some theories inspired by string theories predict micro black holes at LHC. Micro blackholes have been proposed as explanation for certain exotic cosmic ray events such as Centauros, which however seem to have standard physics explanation.

Without being a specialist one could expect that evaporating black hole would be in many respects analogous to quark gluon plasma phase decaying to elementary particles producing jets. Or any particle like system, which has forgot all information about colliding particles which created it- say the information about the scattering plane of partons leading to the jets as a final state and reflecting itself as the coplanarity of the jets. If the information about initial state is lost, one would expect more or less spherical jet distribution. The variable used as in the study is sum of transverse energies for jets emerging from same point and having at least 50 GeV transverse energy. QCD predicts that this kind of events should be rather scarce and if they are present, one can seriously consider the possibility of new physics.

The LHC document containing the sensational proposal is titled Search for Black Holes in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and has the following abstract:

An update on a search for microscopic black hole production in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV by the CMS experiment at the LHC is presented using a 2011 data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 190 pb⁻¹. This corresponds to a six-fold increase in statistics compared to the original search based on 2010 data. Events with large total transverse energy have been analyzed for the presence of multiple energetic jets, leptons, and photons, typical of a signal from an evaporating black hole. A good agreement with the expected standard model backgrounds, dominated by QCD multijet production, has been observed for various multiplicities of the final state. Stringent model-independent limits on new physics production in high-multiplicity energetic final states have been set, along with model-specific lim- its on semi-classical black hole masses in the 4-5 TeV range for a variety of model parameters. This update extends substantially the sensitivity of the 2010 analysis.

The abstract would suggest that nothing special has been found but in sharp contrast with this the article mentions black hole candidate decaying to 10 jets with total transverse energy S_T. The event is illustrated in the figure 3 of the article. The large number of jets emanating from single point would suggest a single object decaying producing the jets.

Personally I cannot take black holes as an explanation of the event seriously. What can I offer instead? p-Adic mass calculations rely on p-adic thermodynamics and this inspires obvious questions. What p-adic cooling and heating processes could mean? Can one speak about p-adic hot spots? What p-adic overheating and over-cooling could mean? Could the octaves of pions and possibly other mesons explaining several anomalous findings including CDF bump correspond to unstable over-heated hadrons for which the p-adic prime near power of two is smaller than normally and p-adic mass scale is correspondingly scaled up by a power of two?

The best manner to learn is by excluding various alternative explanations for the 10 jet event.

1. M₈₉ variants of QCD jets are excluded both because their production requires higher energies and because their number would be small. The first QCD three-jets were observed around 1979. q-qbar-g three-jet was in question and it was detected in e⁺ e^- collision with cm energy about 7 GeV. The naive scaling by factor 512 would suggest that something like 5.6 TeV cm energy is needed to observed M₈₉ parton jets. The recent energy is 7 TeV so that there are hopes of observing M₈₉ three- jets in decays of heavy M₈₉. For instance, the decays of charmonium and bottonium of M₈₉ physics to three gluons or two-gluons and photon would create three-jets.

2. Ordinary quark gluon plasma is excluded since in a sufficiently large volume of quark gluon plasma so called jet quenching occurs so that jets have small transverse energies. This would be due to the dissipation of energy in the dense quark gluon plasma. Also ordinary QCD jets are predicted to be rare at these transverse energies: this is of course the very idea of how black hole evaporation might be observed. Creation of quark gluon plasma of M₈₉ hadron physics cannot be in question since ordinary quark gluon plasma was created in p-anti-p collision with cm energy of few TeV so that something like 512 TeV of cm energy might be needed!

3. Could the decay correspond to a decay of a blob of M₈₉ hadronic phase to M₁₀₇ hadrons? How this process could take place? I proposed for about 15 years ago see (this) that the transition from M₈₉ hadron physics to M₁₀₇ hadron physics might take place as a p-adic cooling via a cascade like process via highly unstable intermediate hadron physics. The p-adic temperature is quantized and given by T_p=n/log(p)≈ n/klog(2) for p≈ 2^k and p-adic cooling process would proceed in a step-wise manner as k→ k+2→ k+4+... Also k → k+1→ k+2+.. with mass scale reduced in powers of square root of 2 can be considered. If only octaves are allowed, the p-adic prime characterizing the hadronic space-time sheets and quark mass scale could decrease in nine steps from M₈₉ mass scale proportional to 2^-89/2 octave by octave down to the hadronic mass scale proportional 2^-107/2 as k=89→ 91→ 93...→ 107. At each step the mass in the propagator of the particle would be changed. In particular on mass shell particles would become off mass shell particles which could decay.

   At quark level the cooling process would naturally stop when the value of k corresponds to that characterizing the quark. For instance b quark one has k(b)=103 so that 7 steps would be involved. This would mean the decay of M₈₉ hadrons to highly unstable intermediate states corresponding to k=91,93,...,107. At every step states almost at rest could be produced and the final decay would produce large number of jets and the outcome would resemble the spectrum blackhole evaporation. Note that for u,d,s quarks one has k=113 characterizing also nuclei and muon which would mean that valence quark space-time sheets of lightest hadrons would be cooler than hadronic space-time sheet, which could be heated by sea partons. Note also that quantum superposition of phases with several p-adic temperatures can be considered in zero energy ontology.

   This is of course just a proposal and might not be the real mechanism. If M₈₉ hadrons are dark in TGD sense as the TGD based explanation of CDF-D0 discrepancy suggests, also the transformation changing the value of Planck constant is involved.

4. This picture does not make sense in the model explaining DAMA observations and DAMA-Xenon100 anomaly, CDF bump (see this) and two and half year old CDF anomaly (see this) . The model involves creation of second octave of M₈₉ pions decaying in stepwise manner. A natural interpretation of p-adic octaves of pions is in terms of a creation of over-heated unstable hadronic space-time sheet having k=85 instead of k=89 and p-adically cooling down to relatively thermally stable M₈₉ sheet and containing light mesons and electroweak bosons. If so then the production of CDF bump would correspond to a creation of hadronic space-time sheet with p-adic temperature corresponding to k=85 cooling by the decay to k=87 pions in turn decaying to k=89. After this the decay to M₁₀₇ hadrons and other particles would take place.

Consider now whether the 10 jet event could be understood as a creation of a p-adic hot spot perhaps assignable to some heavy meson of M₈₉ physics. For current quarks the p-adic primes can be much large so that in the case of u and d quark the masses can be in 10 MeV range (which together with detailed model for light hadrons supports the view that quarks can appear at several p-adic temperatures).

1. According to p-adic mass calculations ordinary charmed quark corresponds to k=104=107-3 and that of bottom quark to k=103=107-4, which is prime and correspond to the second octave of M₁₀₇ mass scale assignable to the highest state of pion cascade. By naive scaling M₈₉ charmonium states (Ψ would correspond to k=89-3=86 with mass of about 1.55 TeV by direct scaling. k=89-4=85 would give mass about 3.1 GeV and there is slight evidence for a resonance around 3.3 TeV perhaps identifiable as charmonium. Υ (bottonium) consisting of bbar pair correspond to k=89-4=85 just like the second octave of M₈₉ pion. The mass of M₈₉ Υ meson would be about 4.8 TeV for k=85. k=83 one obtains 9.6 TeV, which exceeds the total cm energy 7 TeV.

2. Intriguingly, k=85 for the bottom quark and for first octave of charmonium would correspond to the second octave of M₈₉ pion. Could it be that the hadronic space-time sheet of Υ is heated to the p-adic temperature of the bottom quark and then cools down in a stepwise manner? If so, the decay of Υ could proceed by the decay to higher octaves of light M₈₉ mesons in a process involving two steps and could produce a large number jets.

3. For the decay of ordinary Υ meson 81.7 per cent of the decays take place via ggg state. In the recent case they would create three M₈₉ parton jets producing relativistic M₈₉ hadrons. 2.2 per cent of decays take place via γ gg state producing virtual photon plus M₈₉ hadrons. The total energies of the three jets would be about 1.6 TeV each and much higher than the energies of QCD jets so that this kind of jets would serve as a clearcut signature of M₈₉ hadron physics and its bottom quark. Note that there already exists slight evidence for charmonium state. Recall that the total transverse energy of the 10 jet event was about 1 TeV.

   Also direct decays to M₈₉ hadrons take place. η' +anything- presumably favored by the large contribution of bbar state in η' - corresponds to 2.9 per cent branching ratio for ordinary hadrons. If second octaves of η' and other hadrons appear in the hadron state, the decay product could be nearly at rest and large number of M₈₉ would result in the p-adic cooling process (the naive scaling of η' mass gives .5 TeV and second octave would correspond to 2 TeV.

4. If two octave p-adic over-heating is dynamically favored, one must also consider the first octave of of scaled variant of J/Ψ state with mass 3.1 GeV scaled up to 3.1 TeV for the first octave. The dominating hadronic final state in the decay of J/Ψ is ρ^+/-π^-/+ with branching ratio of 1.7 per cent. The branching fractions of ωπ⁺π⁺π^-π^-, ωπ⁺π^-π⁰, and ωπ⁺π⁺pi^- are 8.5× 10^-3 4.0× 10^-3, and 8.6× 10^-3 respectively. The second octaves for the masses of ρ and π would be 1.3 TeV and .6 TeV giving net mass of 1.9 TeV so that these mesons would be relativistic if charmonium state with mass around 3.3 TeV is in question. If the two mesons decay by cooling, one would obtain two jets decaying two jets. Since the original mesons are relativistic one would probably obtain two wide jets decomposing to sub-jets. This would not give the desired fireball like outcome.

   The decays ωπ⁺π⁺π^-π^- (see Particle Data Tables would produce five mesons, which are second octaves of M₈₉ mesons. The rest masses of M₈₉ mesons would in this case give total rest mass of 3.5 TeV. In this kind of decay -if kinematically possible- the hadrons would be nearly at rest. They would decay further to lower octaves almost at rest. These states in turn would decay to ordinary quark pairs and electroweak bosons producing a large number of jets and black hole like signatures might be obtained. If the process proceeds more slowly from M₈₉ level, the visible jets would correspond to M₈₉ hadrons decaying to ordinary hadrons. Their transverse energies would be very high.

To sum up, a possible interpretation for the 10-jet event in TGD framework would be as p-adic hot spot produced in collision created by the overheating of M₈₉ hadronic space-time sheets by the presence of bottonium or possibly charmonium state. The general signature of M₈₉ hadron physics is jets which are much more energetic than QCD jets and that data indicate their presence.

For more about new physics predicted by TGD see the chapter New Particle Physics Predicted by TGD: Part I of "p-Adic Length Scale Hypothesis and Dark Matter Hierarchy". For reader's convenience I have added a short pdf article Is the new boson reported by CDF pion of M89 hadron physics? at my homepage.