New Flux Limits in the Low Relativistic Regime for Magnetic Monopoles at IceCube

TL;DR

This paper introduces ice luminescence as a new detection mechanism for low relativistic magnetic monopoles and sets a new flux limit based on seven years of IceCube data, improving previous limits by two orders of magnitude.

Contribution

It presents the first use of ice luminescence for detecting low relativistic magnetic monopoles and establishes a significantly improved flux limit using extensive IceCube data.

Findings

No magnetic monopoles detected in the data.

New flux limit surpasses previous best by 100 times.

Luminescence is effective in the low relativistic velocity range.

Abstract

Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical particles that carry magnetic charge. Depending on their velocity, different light production mechanisms exist to facilitate detection. In this work, a previously unused light production mechanism, luminescence of ice, is introduced. This light production mechanism is nearly independent of the velocity of the incident magnetic monopole and becomes the only viable light production mechanism in the low relativistic regime (0.1-0.55c). An analysis in the low relativistic regime searching for magnetic monopoles in seven years of IceCube data is presented. While no magnetic monopole detection can be claimed, a new flux limit in the low relativistic regime is presented, superseding the previous best flux limit by 2 orders of magnitude.