Searching for Magnetic Monopoles with MoEDAL

使用 MoEDAL 搜索磁单极子

• 批准号: 2011214
• 负责人: Igor Ostrovskiy
• 金额: $ 22.24万
• 依托单位: University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2011214&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Searching; Magnetic; Monopoles; MoEDAL

Magnetic monopoles are particles suggested to exist by Dirac to explain the quantization of the electric charge. The existence of magnetic monopoles is well motivated, but their mass and production mechanism are highly uncertain. Their detection would constitute a major transformational discovery in physics. Magnetic monopoles are also predicted in many variants of Grand Unification Theory (GUT) and in Supersymmetric (SUSY) models. This project will search for magnetic monopoles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN with the MoEDAL (Monopoles and Exotics Detector At the LHC). The search for the magnetic monopoles crosses many disciplinary boundaries in physics: from accelerator-based physics to astro-particle physics. A detection would have a profound impact on our understanding of Nature’s building blocks and would attract broad attention. This project will stimulate the imagination of undergraduate students and high school students in Tuscaloosa county by allowing them to participate in a modern international particle physics experiment. The educational objective of this proposal includes engaging a diverse group of undergraduate and high school students in citizen science analysis of the MoEDAL data. This project will also provide students with the opportunity to learn and apply the latest machine learning techniques.This project enables the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa group to contribute to the calibration of the MoEDAL experiment, analysis of the data, and convening the machine learning analysis group. This project will make a leading contribution to the analysis of the MoEDAL's proton-on-proton data from the second LHC run. In addition, the LHC lead-on-lead collision data will be analyzed by the group for the potential production of magnetic monopoles by the Schwinger mechanism, which will be the first time this process is investigated experimentally in this context. Finally, the group will contribute to the hardware extension of the MoEDAL detectors, which are currently being prepared for the next LHC run.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

磁单极子是狄拉克提出的用来解释电荷量子化的粒子。磁单极子的存在有很好的动机，但它们的质量和产生机制是高度不确定的。它们的发现将构成物理学的重大变革。在大统一理论（GUT）的许多变体和超对称（SUSY）模型中也预测了磁单极子。该项目将在欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机（LHC）上使用MoEDAL （LHC的单极子和外来物探测器）搜索磁单极子。对磁单极子的研究跨越了物理学中的许多学科界限：从基于加速器的物理学到天体粒子物理学。一项发现将对我们对大自然组成部分的理解产生深远的影响，并将引起广泛的关注。这个项目将激发塔斯卡卢萨县本科生和高中生的想象力，让他们参与现代国际粒子物理实验。该提案的教育目标包括让不同群体的本科生和高中生参与对MoEDAL数据的公民科学分析。该项目还将为学生提供学习和应用最新机器学习技术的机会。该项目使阿拉巴马大学塔斯卡卢萨小组能够参与MoEDAL实验的校准，数据分析，并召集机器学习分析小组。该项目将对MoEDAL第二次大型强子对撞机运行的质子对质子数据的分析做出重要贡献。此外，该团队还将对LHC铅对铅碰撞数据进行分析，以确定Schwinger机制可能产生磁单极子，这将是该过程首次在此背景下进行实验研究。最后，该小组将为MoEDAL探测器的硬件扩展做出贡献，该探测器目前正在为下一次大型强子对撞机运行做准备。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Search for magnetic monopoles produced via the Schwinger mechanism

• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04298-1
• 发表时间: 2022-02-03
• 期刊: NATURE
• 影响因子: 64.8
• 作者: Acharya, B.;Alexandre, J.;Vives, O.
• 通讯作者: Vives, O.

Search for highly-ionizing particles in pp collisions at the LHC’s Run-1 using the prototype MoEDAL detector

使用原型 MoEDAL 探测器在 LHC Run-1 中搜索 pp 碰撞中的高电离粒子

• DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10608-2
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: The European Physical Journal C
• 作者: Acharya, B.;Alexandre, J.;Benes, P.;Bergmann, B.;Bertolucci, S.;Bevan, A.;Bhattacharyya, R.;Branzas, H.;Burian, P.;Campbell, M.
• 通讯作者: Campbell, M.

Opportunities for new physics searches with heavy ions at colliders

• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6471/acc197
• 发表时间: 2022-03
• 期刊: Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
• 作者: D. d’Enterria;M. Drewes;A. Giammanco;Jan Hajer;E. Bratkovskaya;R. Bruce;N. Burmasov;M. Dyndał;O. Gould;I. Grabowska-Bold;M. Gumberidze;T. Gunji;R. Holzmann;J. Jowett;E. Kryshen;V. Okorokov;I. Schmidt;A. Upreti