Papers that question Hawking radiation:

Adam D. Helfer, "Do black holes radiate?" Reports on Progress in Physics. Vol. 66 No. 6 (2003) pp. 943-1008.
Questions the existence of Hawking radiation. See web version

William G. Unruh and Ralf Schützhold, "On the Universality of the Hawking Effect," Physics Review D 71(2005) 024028. Considers plausible quantum gravity scenarios in which black holes radiate at rates very different from those proposed by Hawking, or do not radiate at all. See web version

V.A. Belinski, "On the existence of quantum evaporation of a black hole," Physics Letters A 209(1) (1995) pp. 13-20.
Asserts that Hawking radiation does not exist.

Papers regarding strangelets at colliders:

Jes Madsen, "Intermediate mass strangelets are positively charged," Physics Review Letters 85 (2000), 4687-4690
Claims that, since negative charge is required for growth, strangelets are safe. See web version

G. X. Peng, X. J. Wen, Y. D. Chen, New solutions for the color-Favor locked strangelets Physics Letters B 633 (2006) 314-318. Says that strangelets may have negative charge after all. See web version

Richard J. Wagner, The Strange Matter of Planetary Destruction.
Discusses the potential for production of strangelets at colliders, and whether they could destroy earth. See web version

Papers assuring the public that nothing could possibly go wrong:

W. Busza, R.L. Jaffe, J. Sandweiss, and F. Wilczek; "Review of Speculative ‘Disaster Scenarios' Brookhaven, 2000
There was concern, and even a lawsuit, before implementation of the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, (in Upton, New York, USA) now on line and apparently safe. (It is not completely sure that it is safe. In some scenarios, a low-probability effect takes a while to appear.) "Review of Speculative ‘Disaster Scenarios'" was posted by a Brookhaven group in response to these concerns. It is ironic that they rated mini black hole production as highly improbable since shortly afterward, many papers appeared predicting black hole production. They spent more time addressing the issue of strangelets. Get PDF version
(The upcoming LHC collider at CERN will be thirty times more powerful than RHIC.)

J.-P. Blaizot, J. Iliopoulos, J. Madsen, G.G. Ross, P. Sonderegger, and H.-J. Specht, "Study Of Potentially Dangerous Events During Heavy-Ion Collisions At The LHC: Report Of The LHC Safety Study Group" CERN, 2003
This is CERN's web posting similar to the posting above. It considers many scenarios, and concludes that there is no risk. However, it assumes that mini black holes will decay by thermal processes (Hawking radiation), and concludes that there is no danger. (See page 12, equation 19.) The idea that Hawking radiation might not work is not explored. Strangelet risk is dismissed based on Madsen's work in the paper listed above, which is now questioned by the paper below that. While discussing cosmic rays the report concludes that "the worst-case scenario cannot be excluded based on these data alone." (Page 5) Get PDF version
CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Here is a link to the CERN website Go to CERN website

Papers and books about global risk that consider collider risk:

Adrian Kent, "A critical look at risk assessments for global catastrophes," Risk Analysis, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2004
This paper discusses the mathematics of expected value (probability times cost) as applied to this type of problem. It considers the high expected loss resulting from low probability risks when the loss is very large. See web version

Martin Rees, Our Final Hour, (Basic Books, 2003).
Sir Martin Rees is England's Astronomer Royal and president of the Royal Society. The book is a good read; Sir Martin is a good writer. His warning about colliders (pp. 119-129) parallels that of this website. He mentions the new multidimensional string theories, and points out how cosmic rays collisions are not exactly equivalent to collider collisions. He is very good on the philosophical implications. He does miss one point. He assumes Hawking radiation will work, and therefore estimates the probability of trouble from mini black holes as lower than we might. He focuses concern on other potential collider products. The book is an excellent review of humanity's hazards and opportunities on a universal scale.

Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Posner is a judge and a law professor. He attempts to apply the legal system and legal concepts to issues of ultimate risk.

Francesco Calogero, "Might a laboratory experiment destroy planet Earth?" Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 25, 191-202 (Autumn 2000).
This paper does not discuss the physics about which we are especially concerned, and so ranks black hole formation as improbable. It considers mainly strangelet production.

Mark Leggett, "An Indicative Costed Plan for the Mitigation of Global Risks," Futures, (2006) Vol. 38, p. 778-809.
Considers the range of global risks and the costs of mitigation. The risk from colliders is considered the easiest to mitigate and the most pressing, and is ranked first. See abstract

Tom Atlee, "What Happens When Science Collides With Citizenship At The Speed Of Light?" Co-Intelligence Institute (1999) This article speaks to the ethics and the appropriate political organization of decisions to proceed with potentially dangerous science, and suggests political forms to address these problems. Skim past the outdated articles about RHIC and read the section titled "So now for a bit of reflection." The author is a member of the Co-Intelligence Institute, which is concerned with the problem of how democracies can address issues of scientific risk. Their website is at www.co-intelligence.org. Go there
They propose organizing a sort of jury or town meeting or focus group of representative citizens to consider each issue of scientific risk. They also endorse a "precautionary principle" which is also advocated by others. We should note that we at this website do not necessarily endorse their approach. We hope that scientists will do good things voluntarily, but if necessary conjecture that these issues might better be addressed by a body with the authority of a global treaty and/or of an international commission. However, we can see town meetings as part of the process, to give citizens a voice. Also, given the present absence of a more formal structure, town meetings might work to raise awareness of the issue. In fact, this website is an attempt to facilitate a conversation that has some resemblance to a town meeting. All the world can be thought of as a town meeting. Readers are encouraged to speak up, here or elsewhere. See article (The associated website is sometimes unavailable.)

(Risk Forum) www.physics4u.gr/articles/2003/mini-blackholes.html
This is a Greek translation of an earlier version of our Risk Evaluation Forum website. Go there

Papers predicting black hole production at colliders:

Steven Giddings and Scott Thomas, "High energy colliders as black hole factories: the end of short-distance physics," Physical Review D 65(5) (2002) 056010. See abstract

Savas Dimopoulos and Greg Landsberg, "Black holes at the Large Hadron Collider," Physical Review Letters, 87(16) 161602, (2001). See abstract

Greg Landsberg, "Discovering New Physics in the Decays of Black Holes," Physical Review Letters, 88(18) 181801 (5/6/2002) See abstract

Nima Arkani-Hamed, Savas Dimopoulos, and Georgi Dvall; "The Universe's Unseen Dimensions," Scientific American, Aug 2000. Pages 62-69.
This paper develops a theory that the multiple dimensions which string theory postulates to be visible on very small scales, may be visible on somewhat larger scales. The motivation is to unify gravity with other forces that are much stronger. The authors state (on page 62) "If the theory is correct, upcoming high-energy particle experiments in Europe could see unusual processes involving quantum gravity, such as the creation of transitory micro black holes." Our concern is that they might not be transitory. This paper is not available on the Internet.

Panagiota Kanti, "Black Holes in Theories with Large Extra Dimensions: a Review," International Journal of Modern Physics A 19 (2004) pp. 4899-4951 http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0402168
Reviews many papers that assert that black holes can be created in high energy particle collisions. (Also shows that the radius of a black hole is many orders of magnitude larger given multiple dimensions, an important result for accretion.)
See abstract. Click below abstract for full text.

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