Black hole multiplicity at particle colliders -: (Do black holes radiate mainly on the brane?)

If gravity becomes strong at the TeV scale, we may have the chance to produce black holes at particle colliders. In this Letter we revisit some phenomenological signatures of black hole production in TeV-gravity theories. We show that the bulk-to-brane ratio of black hole energy loss during the Hawking evaporation phase depends crucially on the black hole greybody factors and on the particle degrees of freedom. Since the greybody factors have not yet been calculated in the literature, and the particle content at trans-Planckian energies is not known, it is premature to claim that the black hole emits mainly on the brane. We also revisit the decay time and the multiplicity of the decay products of black hole evaporation. We give general formulae for black hole decay time and multiplicity. We find that the number of particles produced during the evaporation phase may be significantly lower than the average multiplicity which has been used in the past literature. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.