Mini-review on mini-black holes from the mini-Big Bang

We review the basic ideas about man-made quantum mechanical black holes. We start by an overview of the proposed attempts to circumvent the hierarchy problem. We study the phenomenological implications of a strong gravity regime at the terascale and we focus on the issue of microscopic black holes. We provide the experimental bounds on relevant quantities as they emerge from major ongoing experiments. The experimental results exclude the production of black holes in collisions up to 8 TeV. We provide some possible explanations of such negative results in view of forthcoming investigations.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, paper based on the talk given at STARS2013/SMFNS2013, Havana/Varadero, Cuba, 4-10 May 2013, submitted for a special issue of Astronomische Nachrichten; v2 additional references and comment

Unparticle contribution to the hydrogen atom ground state energy

In the present work we study the effect of unparticle modified static potentials on the energy levels of the hydrogen atom. By using Rayleigh-Schr\"odinger perturbation theory, we obtain the energy shift of the ground state and we compare it with experimental data. Bounds on the unparticle energy scale $\Lambda_\mathcal{U}$ as a function of the scaling dimension $d_\mathcal{U}$ and the coupling constant $\lambda$ are derived. We show that there exists a parameter region where bounds on $\Lambda_\mathcal{U}$ are stringent, signalling that unparticles could be tested in atomic physics experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Nadelöhr journalistischer Berufseinstieg. Stipendiaten des ifp haben gute Chancen in den Medien

Trotz der Medienkrise in Deutschland haben Stipendiaten des "Instituts zur Förderung publizistischen Nachwuchses e. V." (ifp) gute Chancen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt. Wer die älteste studienbegleitende Journalistenausbildung in Deutschland absolviert hat, kann trotz der schwieriger gewordenen Berufssituation im deutschen Journalismus auf den Start einer Journalistenkarriere hoffen. Dies zeigen Werdegänge jüngerer ehemaliger Stipendiaten der Journalistenschule der Katholischen Kirche. (...

"(Ab)Bilder - wie Medien Realität produzieren". Dokumentation der Tagung in der Katholischen Akademie Bayern

Ob wir wollen oder nicht: wir machen uns ein Bild. Und verlassen uns auf Bilder, die andere für uns machen. Wie nie zuvor prägen Bilder unsere Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen: ob 11. September oder Irakkrieg – das Weltgeschehen wird uns in Bildern mitgeteilt. Die alltägliche Bilderflut droht unsere Wahrnehmung zu überschwemmen, die Grenzen zwischen erlebter und gezeigter Wirklichkeit verschwimmen zu lassen. (...

Exclusion of black hole disaster scenarios at the LHC

The upcoming high energy experiments at the LHC are one of the most outstanding efforts for a better understanding of nature. It is associated with great hopes in the physics community. But there is also some fear in the public, that the conjectured production of mini black holes might lead to a dangerous chain reaction. In this paper we summarize the most straight forward arguments that are necessary to rule out such doomsday scenarios.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

Teaching politics after the practice turn

The ‘practice turn’ and its associated ontology, epistemology and methodology are now well established in political research. In this article, we identify and explore a corollary pedagogy. After outlining the principal components of practice theory, we compare case- and placement-based approaches to learning, designed to develop skills for use in practice. We introduce and describe our own rather different course, which we designed to develop an understanding of the nature of practice as such. We discuss its scope and dynamics, particularly with regard to power in the classroom, and identify broader opportunities and challenges for the development of practice-based pedagogy