Probing TeV gravity with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

Models with compactified extra space dimensions offer a new way to address outstanding problems in and beyond the Standard Model. In these models, the strength of gravity is strongly increased at small distances, which opens up the possibility of observing quantum gravity effects in the TeV energy range reachable by the LHC. One of the most spectacular phenomena would be the production of microscopic black holes. Searches for black holes are foreseen in the ATLAS experiment with the start-up of data taking in 2009. We present feasibility studies for the triggering, selection and reconstruction of the black hole event topologies, the black hole discovery potential and their identification.