Narrow Results

Dirac showed that the existence of one magnetic pole in the universe could offer an explanation of the discrete nature of the electric charge. Magnetic poles appear naturally in most grand unified theories. Their discovery would be of greatest importance for particle physics and cosmology. The intense experimental search carried thus far has not met with success. I propose a universe with magnetic poles which are not observed free because they hide in deeply bound monopole–antimonopole states named monopolium. I discuss the realization of this proposal and its consistency with known cosmological features. I furthermore analyze its implications and the experimental signatures that confirm the scenario.

The MoEDAL experiment at Point 8 of the LHC ring is the seventh and newest LHC experiment. It is dedicated to the search for highly-ionizing particle avatars of physics beyond the Standard Model, extending significantly the discovery horizon of the LHC. A MoEDAL discovery would have revolutionary implications for our fundamental understanding of the Microcosm. MoEDAL is an unconventional and largely passive LHC detector comprised of the largest array of Nuclear Track Detector stacks ever deployed at an accelerator, surrounding the intersection region at Point 8 on the LHC ring. Another novel feature is the use of paramagnetic trapping volumes to capture both electrically and magnetically charged highly-ionizing particles predicted in new physics scenarios. It includes an array of TimePix pixel devices for monitoring highly-ionizing particle backgrounds. The main passive elements of the MoEDAL detector do not require a trigger system, electronic readout, or online computerized data acquisition. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the MoEDAL physics reach, which is largely complementary to the programs of the large multipurpose LHC detectors ATLAS and CMS.

We show that due to the large coupling constant of the monopole–photon interaction the annihilation of monopole–antimonopole and monopolium into many photons must be considered experimentally. For monopole–antimonopole annihilation and lightly bound monopolium, even in the less favorable scenario, multiphoton events (four and more photons in the final state) are dominant, while for strongly bound monopolium, although two photon events are important, four- and six-photon events are also sizable.