Black hole detection with the OWL-Airwatch telescope 033002

Abstract

In scenarios with large extra dimensions and TeV scale gravity, ultrahigh energy neutrinos produce black holes in their interactions with the nucleons. We show that OWL may observe a large number of black hole events and provide valuable information about the fundamental Planck scale and the number of extra dimensions. OWL is especially well suited to observe black hole events produced by neutrinos from the interactions of cosmic rays with the 3 K background radiation. Depending on the parameters of the scenario of large extra dimensions and on the flux model, as many as 28 events per year are expected for a Planck scale of 3 TeV. © 2002 The American Physical Society.