Higgs Boson Production from Black Holes at the LHC

Abstract

If the fundamental Planck scale is near a TeV, then TeV scale black holes should be produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC where \sqrt{s} = 14 TeV. As the temperature of the black holes can be ~ 1 TeV we also expect production of Higgs bosons from them via Hawking radiation. This is a different production mode for the Higgs boson, which would normally be produced via direct pQCD parton fusion processes. In this paper we compare total cross sections and transverse momentum distributions dσ/dp_T for Higgs production from black holes at the LHC with those from direct parton fusion processes at next-to-next-to-leading order and next-to-leading order respectively. We find that the Higgs production from black holes can be larger or smaller than the direct pQCD production depending upon the Planck mass and black hole mass. We also find that dσ/dp_T of Higgs production from black holes increases as a function of p_T which is in sharp contrast with the pQCD predictions where dσ/dp_T decreases so we suggest that the measurement of an increase in dσ/dp_T as p_T increases for Higgs (or any other heavy particle) production can be a useful signature for black holes at the LHC.