Direct search for Dirac magnetic monopoles in pp collisions at square root s = 1.96 TeV

Search for Magnetic Monopole Pair Production in Ultraperipheral Pb+Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.36 TeV with the ATLAS Detector at the LHC

This Letter presents a search for highly ionizing magnetic monopoles in 262  μb^{-1} of ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collision data at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.36  TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. A new methodology that exploits the properties of clusters of hits reconstructed in the innermost silicon detector layers is introduced to study highly ionizing particles in heavy-ion data. No significant excess above the background, which is estimated using a data-driven technique, is observed. Using a nonperturbative semiclassical model, upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the cross section for pair production of monopoles with a single Dirac magnetic charge in the mass range of 20-150 GeV. Depending on the model, monopoles with a single Dirac magnetic charge and mass below 80-120 GeV are excluded.

Monopoles from an Atmospheric Fixed Target Experiment

Magnetic monopoles have a long history of theoretical predictions and experimental searches, carrying direct implications for fundamental concepts such as electric charge quantization. We analyze in detail for the first time magnetic monopole production from collisions of cosmic rays bombarding the atmosphere. This source of monopoles is independent of cosmology, has been active throughout Earth's history, and supplies an irreducible monopole flux for all terrestrial experiments. Using results for robust atmospheric fixed target experiment flux of monopoles, we systematically establish direct comparisons of previous ambient monopole searches with monopole searches at particle colliders and set leading limits on magnetic monopole production in the ∼5-100  TeV mass range.

Nonsingular Black Holes in 4D Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet Gravity

Recently, several methods have been proposed to regularize a D→4 limit of Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet (EGB), leading to nontrivial gravitational dynamics in 4D. We present an exact nonsingular black hole solution in the 4D EGB gravity coupled to non-linear electrodynamics and analyze their thermodynamic properties to calculate precise expressions for the black hole mass, temperature, and entropy. Because of the magnetic charge, the thermodynamic quantities are corrected, and the Hawking–Page phase transition is achievable with diverges of the heat capacity at a larger critical radius r=r+C in comparison to the 5D counterpart where the temperature is maximum. Thus, we have a black hole with Cauchy and event horizons, and its evaporation leads to a thermodynamically stable extremal black hole remnant with vanishing temperature, and its size is larger than the 5D counterpart. The entropy does not satisfy the usual exact horizon Bekenstein–Hawking area law of general relativity with a logarithmic area correction term.

Search for Magnetic Monopoles and Stable High-Electric-Charge Objects in 13 Tev Proton-Proton Collisions with the ATLAS Detector

A search for magnetic monopoles and high-electric-charge objects is presented using 34.4  fb^{-1} of 13 TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2015 and 2016. The considered signature is based upon high ionization in the transition radiation tracker of the inner detector associated with a pencil-shape energy deposit in the electromagnetic calorimeter. The data were collected by a dedicated trigger based on the tracker high-threshold hit capability. The results are interpreted in models of Drell-Yan pair production of stable particles with two spin hypotheses (0 and 1/2) and masses ranging from 200 to 4000 GeV. The search improves by approximately a factor of 5 the constraints on the direct production of magnetic monopoles carrying one or two Dirac magnetic charges and stable objects with electric charge in the range 20≤|z|≤60 and extends the charge range to 60<|z|≤100.

The MoEDAL experiment: a new light on the high-energy frontier

MoEDAL is a pioneering LHC experiment designed to search for anomalously ionizing messengers of new physics, such as the magnetic monopole. After a test run at 8 TeV centre-of-mass energy (Ecm), it started official data taking at the LHC at an Ecm of 13 TeV, in 2015. Its groundbreaking physics program defines a number of scenarios that yield potentially revolutionary insights into such foundational questions as: are there extra dimensions or new symmetries; what is the mechanism for the generation of mass; does magnetic charge exist; do topological particles exist; and what is the nature of dark matter? After a brief introduction, MoEDAL's progress to date will be reported, including its past, current and expected future physics output. Additionally, an upgrade to the MoEDAL detector consisting of two new subdetectors: MAPP (MoEDAL Apparatus for Penetrating Particles) now being prototyped at IP8; and MALL (MoEDAL Apparatus for very long-lived particles), will be presented. Finally, a possible astroparticle extension to MoEDAL, called Cosmic-MoEDAL, will be briefly described. This high altitude detector will allow the search for magnetic monopoles to be continued from the TeV scale to the GUT scale. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Topological avatars of new physics'.

Cellular Models: HD Patient-Derived Pluripotent Stem Cells

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by expanded polyglutamine (polyQ)-encoding repeats in the Huntingtin (HTT) gene. Traditionally, HD cellular models consisted of either patient cells not affected by disease or rodent neurons expressing expanded polyQ repeats in HTT. As these models can be limited in their disease manifestation or proper genetic context, respectively, human HD pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are currently under investigation as a way to model disease in patient-derived neurons and other neural cell types. This chapter reviews embryonic stem cell (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models of disease, including published differentiation paradigms for neurons and their associated phenotypes, as well as current challenges to the field such as validation of the PSCs and PSC-derived cells. Highlighted are potential future technical advances to HD PSC modeling, including transdifferentiation, complex in vitro multiorgan/system reconstruction, and personalized medicine. Using a human HD patient model of the central nervous system, hopefully one day researchers can tease out the consequences of mutant HTT (mHTT) expression on specific cell types within the brain in order to identify and test novel therapies for disease.

Ions, Protons, and Photons as Signatures of Monopoles

Magnetic monopoles have been a subject of interest since Dirac established the relationship between the existence of monopoles and charge quantization. The Dirac quantization condition bestows the monopole with a huge magnetic charge. The aim of this study was to determine whether this huge magnetic charge allows monopoles to be detected by the scattering of charged ions and protons on matter where they might be bound. We also analyze if this charge favors monopolium (monopole–antimonopole) annihilation into many photons over two photon decays.

Search for magnetic monopoles in polar volcanic rocks

For a broad range of values of magnetic monopole mass and charge, the abundance of monopoles trapped inside Earth would be expected to be enhanced in the mantle beneath the geomagnetic poles. A search for magnetic monopoles was conducted using the signature of an induced persistent current following the passage of igneous rock samples through a SQUID-based magnetometer. A total of 24.6 kg of rocks from various selected sites, among which 23.4 kg are mantle-derived rocks from the Arctic and Antarctic areas, was analyzed. No monopoles were found, and a 90% confidence level upper limit of 9.8 × 10(-5)/g is set on the monopole density in the search samples.

Search for magnetic monopoles in sqrt[s]=7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

This Letter presents a search for magnetic monopoles with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider using an integrated luminosity of 2.0  fb(-1) of pp collisions recorded at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt[s]=7  TeV. No event is found in the signal region, leading to an upper limit on the production cross section at 95% confidence level of 1.6/ϵ  fb for Dirac magnetic monopoles with the minimum unit magnetic charge and with mass between 200 GeV and 1500 GeV, where ϵ is the monopole reconstruction efficiency. The efficiency ϵ is high and uniform in the fiducial region given by pseudorapidity |η|<1.37 and transverse kinetic energy 600-700<E(kin)sinθ<1400  GeV. The minimum value of 700 GeV is for monopoles of mass 200 GeV, whereas the minimum value of 600 GeV is applicable for higher mass monopoles. Therefore, the upper limit on the production cross section at 95% confidence level is 2 fb in this fiducial region. Assuming the kinematic distributions from Drell-Yan pair production of spin-1/2 Dirac magnetic monopoles, the efficiency is in the range 1%-10%, leading to an upper limit on the cross section at 95% confidence level that varies from 145 fb to 16 fb for monopoles with mass between 200 GeV and 1200 GeV. This limit is weaker than the fiducial limit because most of these monopoles lie outside the fiducial region.