The LHC just ruled out another hiding place for quantum black holes

Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have pushed the search for microscopic black holes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) into new territory.

These hypothetical black holes would be extraordinarily small and short-lived. If they could be produced at the LHC, their existence might help physicists address some of the deepest unanswered questions about spacetime and gravity. The search also gave researchers a chance to test a new technique for finding rare and previously unknown particles.

"Had we found evidence, we could have begun to directly study quantum gravity," said Tamas Vami, a researcher in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment who is conducting his postdoctoral work under the guidance of UCSB physics professor Joe Incandela. "It's a step toward unifying all of the known fundamental forces, which has been a goal of physicists for more than a century."