New physics searches with heavy-ion collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
Roderik Bruce, David d’Enterria, Albert de Roeck, Marco Drewes, Glennys R Farrar, Andrea Giammanco, Oliver Gould, Jan Hajer, Lucian Harland-Lang, Jan Heisig, John M Jowett, Sonia Kabana, Georgios K Krintiras, Michael Korsmeier, Michele Lucente, Guilherme Milhano, Swagata Mukherjee, Jeremi Niedziela, Vitalii A Okorokov, Arttu Rajantie, Michaela Schaumann
Abstract
Abstract This document summarises proposed searches for new physics accessible in the heavy-ion mode at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), both through hadronic and ultraperipheral γγ interactions, and that have a competitive or, even, unique discovery potential compared to standard proton–proton collision studies. Illustrative examples include searches for new particles—such as axion-like pseudoscalars, radions, magnetic monopoles, new long-lived particles, dark photons, and sexaquarks as dark matter candidates—as well as new interactions, such as nonlinear or non-commutative QED extensions. We argue that such interesting possibilities constitute a well-justified scientific motivation, complementing standard quark-gluon-plasma physics studies, to continue running with ions at the LHC after the Run-4, i.e. beyond 2030, including light and intermediate-mass ion species, accumulating nucleon–nucleon integrated luminosities in the accessible fb −1 range per month.