Dirac Magnetic Monopole Production from Photon Fusion in Proton Collisions

TL;DR

This paper calculates and compares the production cross-sections of Dirac magnetic monopoles via photon fusion and Drell-Yan processes in proton collisions, highlighting photon fusion as a dominant mechanism at LHC energies.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of monopole production cross-sections from photon fusion at collider energies, emphasizing its importance for monopole searches.

Findings

Photon fusion cross-section is comparable to Drell-Yan at 1.96 TeV.

Photon fusion dominates Drell-Yan by ~50 times at 14 TeV.

Monopole mass limits are set at m > 370 GeV based on collider null results.

Abstract

We calculate the lowest order cross--section for Dirac magnetic monopole production from photon fusion in p p-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV, p p collisions at sqrt{s}=14 TeV, and we compare photon fusion with Drell--Yan (DY) production. We find the total photon fusion cross--section is comparable with DY at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV and dominates DY by a factor ~50 at sqrt{s}=14 TeV. We conclude that both the photon fusion and DY processes allow for a monopole mass limit m>370 GeV based upon the null results of the recent monopole search at the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF). We also conclude that photon fusion is the leading production mechanism to be considered for direct monopole searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).