BlackMax: A black-hole event generator with rotation, recoil, split branes and brane tension

Manual of BlackMax, a black-hole event generator with rotation, recoil, split branes, and brane tension

This is the users manual of the black-hole event generator BlackMax, which simulates the experimental signatures of microscopic and Planckian black-hole production and evolution at proton-proton, proton-antiproton and electron-positron colliders in the context of brane world models with low-scale quantum gravity. The generator is based on phenomenologically realistic models free of serious problems that plague low-scale gravity. It includes all of the black-hole gray-body factors known to date and incorporates the effects of black-hole rotation, splitting between the fermions, non-zero brane t…

Critical escape velocity of black holes from branes

In recent work we have shown that a black hole stacked on a brane escapes once it acquires a recoil velocity. This result was obtained in the {\it probe-brane} approximation, {\it i.e.}, when the tension of the brane is negligibly small. Therefore, it is not clear whether the effect of the brane tension may prevent the black hole from escaping for small recoil velocities. The question is whether a critical escape velocity exists. Here, we analyze this problem by studying the interaction between a Dirac-Nambu-Goto brane and a black hole assuming adiabatic (quasi-static) evolution. By describing…

Optimizing the basis of B -> K* l+l- observables and understanding its tensions

We discuss the impact of recent LHCb data on the B -> K* mu+mu- decay for New Physics searches. We use an optimised set of observables with a limited sensitivity to hadronic inputs (form factors), leading to a significant deviation from the Standard Model for the semileptonic operator O9. We ascertain the robustness of our results with respect to models of power corrections, charm-loop effects, factorisation approaches, possible effects from resonance tails at low-recoil, choice of observables and binnings. We explain some contradictory results obtained for the chirality-flipped operator O9pri…

DAMA/LIBRA与暗物质：决定性张力还是人为抵消

DAMA/LIBRA and dark matter: decisive tension or contrived cancellation

研究DAMA/LIBRA与ANAIS-112、COSINE-100实验在年度调制信号上的矛盾，通过核反冲模型分析发现物理动机最强的情况下张力超过5σ，降低张力需要大量调谐。

$B\to D^{(\ast)}\ellν$ at non-zero recoil

$B$ anomalies play a prominent role in Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics searches. In particular, the long standing tension between the inclusive and the exclusive determinations of the CKM matrix element $|V_{cb}|$ and the current tensions in the $R(D)$--$R(D^\ast)$ plane between theory and experiment have brought the $B\to D^{(\ast)}\ellν$ semileptonic processes to the spotlight. Existing lattice-QCD calculations of the $B\to D\ellν$ form factors at non-zero recoil are being complemented with very recent developments in the $B\to D^\ast\ellν$ channel. In this review I discuss recent pr…

Black hole remnants are not too fast to be dark matter

We comment on recent claims that recoil in the final stages of Hawking evaporation gives black hole remnants large velocities, rendering them inviable as a dark matter candidate. We point out that due to cosmic expansion, such large velocities at the final stages of evaporation are not in tension with the cold dark matter paradigm so long as they are attained at sufficiently early times. In particular, the predicted recoil velocities are robustly compatible with observations if the remnants form before the epoch of big bang nucleosynthesis, a requirement which is already imposed by the physics…