Magnetic Monopoles -- From Dirac to the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This review discusses the theoretical basis and experimental efforts, especially at the Large Hadron Collider, to discover magnetic monopoles, which remain elusive despite strong theoretical support.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations and recent experimental searches for magnetic monopoles, highlighting the latest collider efforts.

Findings

Magnetic monopoles are theoretically well-supported but not yet observed.

Recent collider experiments, including at CERN, continue to search for monopoles.

The review summarizes historical and current experimental approaches.

Abstract

One of the basic properties of magnetism is that a magnet has always two poles, north and south, which cannot be separated into isolated poles, the magnetic monopoles. There are strong theoretical arguments in favour of monopoles' existence, but in spite of extensive searches they are yet to be found. In this review article, after highlighting briefly the theoretical foundations of monopoles, a historical overview of experimental endeavours to observe them is given, with emphasis on the state-of-the-art of searches in cosmic and collider experiments and in particular the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.