Electroweak Monopole-Antimonopole Pair Production at LHC

TL;DR

This paper analyzes different mechanisms for electroweak monopole production at LHC, concluding that thermal fluctuation is unlikely to produce monopoles, while Drell-Yan and Schwinger mechanisms could enable detection at certain mass ranges.

Contribution

It demonstrates that monopole production at LHC depends critically on the mechanism, showing thermal fluctuation is ineffective and identifying conditions under which Drell-Yan or Schwinger mechanisms could produce detectable monopoles.

Findings

Thermal fluctuation mechanism is ineffective at LHC energies.

Drell-Yan and Schwinger mechanisms could produce monopoles up to 7-11 TeV.

Detection prospects depend on the monopole production mechanism.

Abstract

The monopole production at LHC crucially depends on the monopole production mechanism. We show that, if the monopole production mechanism at LHC is the thermal fluctuation of the Higgs vacuum as the early universe did, it is practically impossible for LHC to produce the monopole, even with the future FCC energy upgrade. This is because the temperature of the p-p fireball is simply too low to produce the monopole. But if the monopole production mechanism is the Drell-Yan and/or Schwinger mechanism, the 14 TeV LHC could produce the monopole in the form of the monopolium of mass around 5,7 TeV even when the monopole mass becomes 11 TeV. Or, it could produce the monopole when the mass is less than 7 TeV. Our result tells that, if the monopole production mechanism at LHC becomes the thermal fluctuation, searching for the remnant monopoles produced in the early universe could be the only way to detect the electroweak monopole. We discuss the physical implications of our result.