Search for magnetic monopoles produced via the Schwinger mechanism
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68407700%3A21670%2F22%3A00358385" target="_blank" >RIV/68407700:21670/22:00358385 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04298-1" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04298-1</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04298-1" target="_blank" >10.1038/s41586-021-04298-1</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Search for magnetic monopoles produced via the Schwinger mechanism
Original language description
Electrically charged particles can be created by the decay of strong enough electric fields, a phenomenon known as the Schwinger mechanism(1). By electromagnetic duality, a sufficiently strong magnetic field would similarly produce magnetic monopoles, if they exist(2). Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical fundamental particles that are predicted by several theories beyond the standard model(3-7) but have never been experimentally detected. Searching for the existence of magnetic monopoles via the Schwinger mechanism has not yet been attempted, but it is advantageous, owing to the possibility of calculating its rate through semi-classical techniques without perturbation theory, as well as that the production of the magnetic monopoles should be enhanced by their finite size(8,9) and strong coupling to photons(2,10). Here we present a search for magnetic monopole production by the Schwinger mechanism in Pb-Pb heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, producing the strongest known magnetic fields in the current Universe(11). It was conducted by the MoEDAL experiment, whose trapping detectors were exposed to 0.235 per nanobarn, or approximately 1.8 x 10(9), of Pb-Pb collisions with 5.02-teraelectronvolt center-of-mass energy per collision in November 2018. A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer scanned the trapping detectors of MoEDAL for the presence of magnetic charge, which would induce a persistent current in the SQUID. Magnetic monopoles with integer Dirac charges of 1, 2 and 3 and masses up to 75 gigaelectronvolts per speed of light squared were excluded by the analysis at the 95% confidence level. This provides a lower mass limit for finite-size magnetic monopoles from a collider search and greatly extends previous mass bounds.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
10303 - Particles and field physics
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2022
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Nature
ISSN
0028-0836
e-ISSN
1476-4687
Volume of the periodical
602
Issue of the periodical within the volume
7895
Country of publishing house
GB - UNITED KINGDOM
Number of pages
16
Pages from-to
"63"-"+"
UT code for WoS article
000750429600019
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85123973033