Search for magnetic monopoles with the MoEDAL prototype trapping detector in 8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC
2016
The MoEDAL experiment is designed to search for magnetic monopoles and
other highly-ionising particles produced in high-energy collisions at the LHC. The largely
passive MoEDAL detector, deployed at Interaction Point 8 on the LHC ring, relies on two
dedicated direct detection techniques. The first technique is based on stacks of nucleartrack
detectors with surface area ∼18 m2
, sensitive to particle ionisation exceeding a high
threshold. These detectors are analysed offline by optical scanning microscopes. The
second technique is based on the trapping of charged particles in an array of roughly 800 kg
of aluminium samples. These samples are monitored offline for the presence of trapped
magnetic charge at a remote superconducting magnetometer facility. We present here
the results of a search for magnetic monopoles using a 160 kg prototype MoEDAL trapping
detector exposed to 8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC, for an integrated luminosity
of 0.75 fb−1
. No magnetic charge exceeding 0.5gD (where gD is the Dirac magnetic charge)
is measured in any of the exposed samples, allowing limits to be placed on monopole
production in the mass range 100 GeV≤ m ≤ 3500 GeV. Model-independent cross-section
limits are presented in fiducial regions of monopole energy and direction for 1gD ≤ |g| ≤
6gD, and model-dependent cross-section limits are obtained for Drell-Yan pair production
of spin-1/2 and spin-0 monopoles for 1gD ≤ |g| ≤ 4gD. Under the assumption of Drell-Yan
cross sections, mass limits are derived for |g| = 2gD and |g| = 3gD for the first time at the
LHC, surpassing the results from previous collider experiments.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
69
References
54
Citations
NaN
KQI