Searching for Monopoles via Monopolium Multiphoton Decays

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for detecting magnetic monopoles through monopolium decay into multiple photons, proposing a model with a finite-sized monopole and analyzing LHC constraints on monopole mass.

Contribution

It introduces a novel monopolium model with a finite-sized monopole and explores its photon decay signatures, providing new constraints from LHC data.

Findings

Resonance features in diphoton and multiphoton channels could indicate monopoles.

Current LHC results impose stringent bounds on monopole mass across various parameters.

Higher multiplicity photon searches are motivated by the model's predictions.

Abstract

We explore the phenomenology of a model of monopolium based on an electromagnetic dual formulation of Zwanziger and lattice gauge theory. The monopole is assumed to have a finite-sized inner structure based on a 't Hooft-Polyakov like solution, with the magnetic charge uniformly distributed on the surface of a sphere. The monopole and anti-monopole potential becomes linear plus Coulomb outside the sphere, analogous to the Cornell potential utilised in the study of quarkonium states. Discovery of a resonance feature in the diphoton channel as well as in a higher multiplicity photon channel would be a smoking gun for the existence of monopoles within this monopolium construction, with the mass and bound state properties extractable. Utilising the current LHC results in the diphoton channel, constraints on the monopole mass are determined for a wide range of model parameters. These are compared to the most recent MoEDAL results and found to be significantly more stringent in certain parameter regions, providing strong motivation for exploring higher multiplicity photon final state searches.