Searching for Magnetic Monopoles with the Earth's Magnetic Field

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method to search for magnetic monopoles by analyzing Earth's magnetic field data, setting upper limits on monopole presence and constraining related astrophysical objects.

Contribution

The study applies Gauss's law to satellite data to place new constraints on Earth's magnetic monopole charge, a novel approach in monopole searches.

Findings

No monopole signal detected within the sensitivity limits.

Set an upper limit of 0.13 nT on Earth's surface magnetic field from monopoles.

Constrained the abundance of magnetically-charged objects like magnetic black holes.

Abstract

Magnetic monopoles have long been predicted in theory and could exist as a stable object in our universe. As they move around in galaxies, magnetic monopoles could be captured by astrophysical objects like stars and planets. Here, we provide a novel method to search for magnetic monopoles by detecting the monopole moment of the Earth's magnetic field. Using over six years of public geomagnetic field data obtained by the Swarm satellites, we apply Gauss's law to measure the total magnetic flux, which is proportional to the total magnetic charge inside the Earth. To account for the secular variation of satellite altitudes, we define an altitude-rescaled magnetic flux to reduce the dominant magnetic dipole contribution. The measured magnetic flux is consistent with the existing magnetic field model that does not contain a monopole moment term. We therefore set an upper limit on the magnetic field strength at Earth's surface from magnetic monopoles to be $|B_{\rm m}| < 0.13$ nT at 95% confidence level, which is less than $2\times 10^{-6}$ of Earth's magnetic field strength. This constrains the abundance of magnetically-charged objects, including magnetic black holes with large magnetic charges.