Search for highly-ionizing particles in pp collisions at the LHC’s Run-1 using the prototype MoEDAL detector
B. S. Acharya, Jean Alexandre, P. Beneš, B. Bergmann, S. Bertolucci, A. J. Bevan, Rupamoy Bhattacharyya, H. Brânzaş, Petr Burian, M. Campbell, S. Cecchini, Y. M. Cho, M. de Montigny, A. De Roeck, John Ellis, M. El Sawy, Malcolm Fairbairn, D. Felea, Mariana Frank, J. Hays, Ann M. Hirt, P. Q. Hung, J. Janecek, M. Kalliokoski, A. Korzenev, D. Lacarrère, C. Leroy, G. Lévi, A. L. Lionti, A. Margiotta, Rafał Masełek, A. Maulik, N. Mauri, Nick E. Mavromatos, E. Musumeci, Mikael Mieskolainen, L. Millward, V. A. Mitsou, R. Orava, I. Ostrovskiy, Pierre-Philippe A. Ouimet, Joannis Papavassiliou, B. Parker, L. Patrizii, G. E. Păvălaş, J. L. Pinfold, L. A. Popa, V. Popa, M. Pozzato, S. Pospı́šil, Arttu Rajantie, R. Ruiz de Austri, Z. Sahnoun, Mairi Sakellariadou, Kazuki Sakurai, A. Santra, S. Sarkar, G. W. Semenoff, A. Shaa, G. Sirri, K. Śliwa, R. Soluk, M. Spurio, Michael Staelens, M. Suk, M. Tenti, V. Togo, Jack A. Tuszyński, A. Upreti, V. Vento, O. Vives
Abstract
Abstract A search for highly electrically charged objects (HECOs) and magnetic monopoles is presented using 2.2 $$\hbox {fb}{^{-1}}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mtext>fb</mml:mtext> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>-</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> of $$p-p$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> <mml:mo>-</mml:mo> <mml:mi>p</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> collision data taken at a centre of mass energy (E $$_{CM}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>CM</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ) of 8 TeV by the MoEDAL detector during LHC’s Run-1. The data were collected using MoEDAL’s prototype Nuclear Track Detectord array and the Trapping Detector array. The results are interpreted in terms of Drell–Yan pair production of stable HECO and monopole pairs with three spin hypotheses (0, 1/2 and 1). The search provides constraints on the direct production of magnetic monopoles carrying one to four Dirac magnetic charges and with mass limits ranging from 590 GeV/c $$^{2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> to 1 TeV/c $$^{2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> . Additionally, mass limits are placed on HECOs with charge in the range 10 e to 180 e , where e is the charge of an electron, for masses between 30 GeV/c $$^{2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> and 1 TeV/c $$^{2}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> .