Minicharges and Magnetic Monopoles

TL;DR

This paper investigates the compatibility of minicharged particles with magnetic monopoles, showing that angular momentum quantization restricts monopole charge combinations and that certain monopoles naturally emerge as 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles.

Contribution

It demonstrates the constraints on monopole charges in models with kinetic mixing and connects these monopoles to well-known 't Hooft-Polyakov solutions.

Findings

Angular momentum quantization restricts monopole charge combinations.

Allowed monopoles correspond to 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles.

Certain monopoles naturally arise in models with broken SU(2).

Abstract

Minicharged particles arise naturally in extensions of the Standard Model with a kinetic mixing term between the ordinary electromagnetic U(1) and an extra "hidden sector" U(1). In this note we study the compatibility of these particles with the existence of magnetic monopoles. We find that angular momentum quantization allows only certain combinations of ordinary and hidden monopole charge. Using the example where one of the U(1)s originates from a spontaneously broken SU(2), we demonstrate that exactly the allowed types of monopoles arise as 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles.