Explosive black hole fission and fusion in large extra dimensions

Abstract

Black holes are the densest form of energy, and in the presence of compact dimensions black objects may take one of several forms including the black-hole and the black-string, the simplest relevant background being R^{3+1} * S^1. Recent understanding of the first order nature of the transition indicate a powerful ``hysteresis'' curve, where black objects may undergo fusion or fission during a tachyonic decay with Planck power and duration of the order of the size of the compact dimension L. Such explosions which scale with L could be test signatures for large extra dimensions in either astronomical observations or accelerators.