MoEDAL Search in the CMS Beam Pipe for Magnetic Monopoles Produced via the Schwinger Effect
Authors: Acharya B, Alexandre J, Behera SC, Benes P, Bergmann B, Bertolucci S, Bevan A, Brancaccio R, Branzas H, Burian P, Campbell M, Cecchini S, Cho YM, de Montigny M, De Roeck A, Ellis JR, Fairbairn M, Felea D, Frank M, Gould O, Hays J, Hirt AM, Ho DL, Hung PQ, Janecek J, Kalliokoski M, Lacarrère DH, Leroy C, Levi G, Margiotta A, Maselek R, Maulik A, Mauri N, Mavromatos NE, Millward L, Mitsou VA, Musumeci E, Ostrovskiy I, Ouimet PP, Papavassiliou J, Patrizii L, Pavalas GE, Pinfold JL, Popa LA, Popa V, Pozzato M, Pospisil S, Rajantie A, Ruiz de Austri R, Sahnoun Z, Sakellariadou M, Sakurai K, Sarkar S, Semenoff G, Shaa A, Sirri G, Sliwa K, Soluk R, Spurio M, Staelens M, Suk M, Tenti M, Togo V, Tuszynski JA, Upreti A, Vento V, Vives O
Affiliations
1 Theoretical Particle Physics & Cosmology Group, Physics Department, King's College, London, United Kingdom.
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, <a href="https://ror.org/03xrrjk67">University of Alabama</a>, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA.
3 IEAP, Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic.
4 INFN, Section of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
5 School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University, London, United Kingdom.
6 INFN, Section of Bologna & Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
7 Institute of Space Science, Bucharest, Magurele, Romania.
8 Experimental Physics Department, <a href="https://ror.org/01ggx4157">CERN</a>, Geneva, Switzerland.
9 Center for Quantum Spacetime, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea.
10 Physics Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
11 Theoretical Physics Department, <a href="https://ror.org/01ggx4157">CERN</a>, Geneva, Switzerland.
12 Department of Physics, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
13 University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
14 Department of Earth Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland.
15 Department of Physics, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom.
16 Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
17 Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
18 Departement de Physique, Universite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
19 Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
20 IFIC, Universitat de Valencia, CSIC, Valencia, Spain.
21 Physics Department, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
22 Department of Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
23 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA.
Description
We report on a search for magnetic monopoles (MMs) produced in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions during Run 1 of the LHC. The beam pipe surrounding the interaction region of the CMS experiment was exposed to 184.07 µb^{-1} of Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV center-of-mass energy per collision in December 2011, before being removed in 2013. It was scanned by the MoEDAL experiment using a SQUID magnetometer to search for trapped MMs. No MM signal was observed. The two distinctive features of this search are the use of a trapping volume very close to the collision point and ultrahigh magnetic fields generated during the heavy-ion run that could produce MMs via the Schwinger effect. These two advantages allowed setting the first reliable, world-leading mass limits on MMs with high magnetic charge. In particular, the established limits are the strongest available in the range between 2 and 45 Dirac units, excluding MMs with masses of up to 80 GeV at a 95% confidence level.
Links
PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39213579/
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.071803