The visible effect of a very heavy magnetic monopole at colliders

TL;DR

This paper explores how the existence of a very heavy magnetic monopole could enhance light-to-light scattering at colliders, providing potential observable signals and methods to determine monopole properties.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that magnetic monopoles could produce detectable effects in collider experiments through light scattering and polarization dependence, offering new avenues for monopole detection.

Findings

Enhanced light-to-light scattering below monopole production threshold.

Potential observability of monopoles at future colliders within specific mass ranges.

Polarization dependence allows determination of monopole spin.

Abstract

If a heavy Dirac monopole exists, the light-to-light scattering below the monopole production threshold is enhanced due to strong coupling of monopoles to photons. At the next Linear Collider with electron beam energy 250 GeV this photon pair production could be observable at monopole masses less than 2.5-6.4 TeV in the $e^+e^-$ mode or 3.7-10 TeV in the $\gamma\gamma$ mode, depending on the monopole spin. At the upgraded Tevatron such an effect is expected to be visible at monopole masses below 1-2.5 TeV. The strong dependence on the initial photon polarizations allows to find the monopole spin in experiments at $e^+e^-$ and $\gamma\gamma$ colliders. We consider the $Z\gamma$ production and the $3\gamma$ production at $e^+e^-$ and $pp$ or $p\bar{p}$ colliders via the same monopole loop. The possibility to discover these processes is significantly lower than that of the $\gamma\gamma$ case.