Testing Dark Energy and Light Particles via Black Hole Evaporation at Colliders

Abstract

We show that collider experiments have the potential to exclude a light scalar field as well as generic models of modified gravity as dark energy candidates. Our mechanism uses the spectrum radiated by black holes and can equally well be applied to determine the number of light degrees of freedom. We obtain the grey body factors for massive scalar particles and calculate the total emissivity. While the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may not get to the desired accuracy, the measurement is within reach of next generation colliders.