Search For Heavy Pointlike Dirac Monopoles

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for heavy pointlike Dirac monopoles through photon pair production in proton-antiproton collisions, setting new lower mass limits based on null results from Fermilab data.

Contribution

First experimental search for heavy Dirac monopoles via photon pair production at Tevatron, establishing new mass exclusion limits.

Findings

No excess events observed above background.

Set lower mass limits of 610, 870, and 1580 GeV/c^2 for different monopole spins.

Abstract

We have searched for central production of a pair of photons with high transverse energies in $p\bar p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 1.8$ TeV using $70 pb^{-1}$ of data collected with the D\O detector at the Fermilab Tevatron in 1994--1996. If they exist, virtual heavy pointlike Dirac monopoles could rescatter pairs of nearly real photons into this final state via a box diagram. We observe no excess of events above background, and set lower 95% C.L. limits of $610, 870, or 1580 GeV/c^2$ on the mass of a spin 0, 1/2, or 1 Dirac monopole.