Higgs vacuum decay from particle collisions?

Abstract

We examine the effect of large extra dimensions on black hole seeded vacuum decay using the Randall-Sundrum model as a prototype for warped extra dimensions. We model the braneworld black hole by a tidal solution and solve the Higgs equations of motion for the instanton on the brane. Remarkably, the action of the static instanton can be shown to be the difference in the bulk areas of the seed and remnant black holes, and we estimate these areas assuming the black holes are small compared to the bulk anti-de Sitter radius. Comparing to the Hawking evaporation rate shows that small black hole seeds preferentially catalyze vacuum decay, thus extending our previous results to higher-dimensional braneworld scenarios. The parameter ranges do not allow for standard model Higgs decay from collider black holes, but they can be relevant for cosmic ray collisions.