Black holes and elementary particle physics

by Prof. Gerard 't Hooft (University Utrecht)

Tuesday 22 Mar 2016, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Budapest

Meeting Room (KFKI campus Bldg. 1.)

The behavior of astronomical black holes, such as the ones that produce gravitational wave signals, can in principle be computed by applying well-known laws of physics. But the known laws of physics also allow for the existence of extremely tiny black holes. Their masses could be as low as a tenth of a milligram or less, while their sizes then enter the range of 10-32 cm or less. These are the scales where new and unknown laws of physics set in. Standard particle physics here leads to contradictions. To unravel those, we are forced to rephrase particle physics laws; particle properties must be reflected in the way they affect the geometric structure of space and time, and by demanding these to agree with the known symmetry structures of the particles, we plan to learn much more both about the sub-atomic particles and about space and time.