Planck scale black holes - Theory vs. observations

Abstract

In this paper we present the status of the physics of Planck scale black holes with particular reference to their conjectured production in particle accelerator experiments at the terascale. After reviewing some open issues of fundamental interactions and introducing the physics in the large extra-dimensional scenario, we present the expected signatures left by a microscopic black hole in a particle detector. The final part of the paper is devoted to the latest experimental bounds on the sought black hole signals.