Quantum Gravity and Noncommutative Geometry


Professor Harms has most recently worked on the quantum description of microscopic black holes and their relation to extended objects such as strings and membranes. The theory of extended objects is currently the best candidate for a unified description of all of the known forces. The theory also predicts the presence of new forces, for example a scalar component of gravity (the dilaton), which have so far not been detected by experiment. To test the validity of string theory as a description of physical phenomena, Professor Harms and his colleagues have performed various calculations to predict the effect of a scalar component of gravity on physically measurable quantities. Other recent projects include the calculation of black hole and naked singularity decay rates in large extra dimensions, black hole decay rates in noncommutative spacetimes, and dark energy as a manifestation of the Casimir energy of noncommuting, compact extra dimensions, investigations of the possibility of catastrophic black hole growth at the LHC, wormhole production at the LHC and the origins of dark energy. Professor Harms received his doctoral degree from Florida State University.



Recent Publications:

1. R. Casadio and B. Harms, ``Can Black Holes and Naked Singularities be Detected in Accelerators? '', International Journal of Modern Physics A17, 4635(2002).

2. S. Fabi, B. Harms and G. Karatheodoris, ``Dark Energy from Casimir Energy on Noncommutative Extra Dimensions'',Phys. Rev. D74, 083506(2006).

3. B. Harms and O. Micu, ``Noncommutative Quantum Hall Effect and Aharonov-Bohm Effect'', J.Phys.A40:10337-10348,2007. e-Print: hep-th/0610081.

4. S. Fabi, B. Harms, G. Karatheodoris, ``Zero point energy on extra dimension: Noncommutative Torus '', Phys.Rev.D76:065010(2007). e-Print: arXiv:0704.1784 [hep-th].

5. Roberto Casadio (Bologna U. \& INFN, Bologna) , Alessandro Gruppuso (IASF, Bologna \& INFN, Bologna) , Benjamin Harms, Octavian Micu ``Boundaries and the Casimir effect in non-commutative space-time''. Phys.Rev.D76:025016(2007). e-Print: arXiv:0704.2251 [hep-th].

6. Marco Cavaglia (Mississippi U.) , Benjamin Harms, ``PP-waves on Superbrane Backgrounds''. Mod. Phys. Letts. A23,3225(2008), e-Print: arXiv:0802.4090 [hep-th].

7. S. Fabi, B. Harms, A. Stern, ``Noncommutative Corrections to the Robertson-Walker metric``, Phys.Rev.D78:065037,2008. e-Print: arXiv:0808.0943 [hep-th]

8. R. Casadio, S. Fabi, and B. Harms, ``Possibility of catastrophic black hole growth in the warped brane-world scenario at the LHC'', Phys. Rev. D 80, 084036 (2009).

9. Roberto Casadio, Sergio Fabi, Benjamin Harms, Octavian Micu, "Theoretical survey of tidal-charged black holes at the LHC" JHEP 1002:079,2010.

10. Roberto Casadio, Benjamin Harms, Octavian Micu, "Effect of brane thickness on microscopic tidal-charged black holes". Phys.Rev.D82:044026,2010.

11. R. Casadio, B. Harms, "Microcanonical description of (micro) black holes". Entropy 13:502-517,2011.

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