Ultra Relativistic Particle Collisions

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:10030002,
            doi = {10.48660/10030002},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/10030002},
            author = {Choptuik, Matthew},
            keywords = {},
            language = {en},
            title = {Ultra Relativistic Particle Collisions},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2010},
            month = {mar},
            note = {PIRSA:10030002 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Abstract

I will present recent numerical results obtained in collaboration with Frans Pretorius that describe head-on collisions of two solitons coupled to the general relativistic gravitational field and boosted to ultra relativistic energies. The calculations show, for the first time, that at sufficiently high energies such a collision leads to black hole formation, consistent with hoop conjecture arguments. This implies that the non-linear gravitational interaction between the kinetic energy of the solitons results in gravitational collapse, and the arguments for black hole formation in super-Planck scale particle collisions are robust. I will also speculate on the nature of the threshold of black hole formation in the model.