Ongoing magnetic monopole searches with IceCube

TL;DR

This paper reviews ongoing and past searches for magnetic monopoles with IceCube, highlighting different detection methods across various velocities and summarizing the current best flux limits established by these searches.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of IceCube's magnetic monopole search strategies and results across multiple velocity regimes, including recent and ongoing efforts.

Findings

IceCube has set the world's best flux limits for magnetic monopoles in various velocity ranges.

Different light production mechanisms are used to detect monopoles at different speeds.

A summary of existing results and methods from IceCube's monopole searches is presented.

Abstract

The IceCube collaboration has instrumented a cubic kilometer of ice with $5160$ photo-multipliers. While mainly developed to detect Cherenkov light, any visible light can be used to detect particles within the ice. Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical particles predicted by many theories that extend the Standard model of Particle Physics. They are carriers of a single elementary magnetic charge. For this particle, different light production mechanisms dominate from direct Cherenkov light at highly relativistic velocities $\left(>0.76\,c\right)$, indirect Cherenkov light at mildly relativistic velocities $\left(\approx 0.5\,c \textrm{ to } 0.76\,c\right)$, luminescence light at low relativistic velocities $\left( \gtrsim 0.1\,c \textrm{ to } 0.5\,c\right)$, as well as catalysis of proton decay at non relativistic velocities $\left(\lesssim 0.1\,c\right)$. For each of this speed ranges, searches for magnetic monopoles at the IceCube experiment are either in progress or they have already set the world's best limits on the flux of magnetic monopoles. A summary of these searches will be presented, outlining already existing results as well as methods used by the currently conducted searches.