Searching for Magnetic Monopoles with MoEDAL

磁单极子是狄拉克提出的用来解释电荷量子化的粒子。磁单极子的存在是有很好的动机的，但它们的质量和产生机制却高度不确定。它们的发现将构成物理学上一项重大的变革性发现。磁单极子也在大统一理论(GUT)和超对称(SUSY)模型的许多变体中被预测。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(大型强子对撞机上的单极和奇异探测器)搜索磁单极子。对磁单极子的探索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文粒子物理学。一次探测将对我们对自然构成要素的理解产生深远的影响，并将引起广泛的关注。该项目将通过让塔斯卡卢萨县的本科生和高中生参与现代国际粒子物理实验来激发他们的想象力。这项建议的教育目标包括让不同的本科生和高中生群体参与对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分校能够为MoEDAL实验的校准、数据分析和召集机器学习分析小组做出贡献。该项目将对MoEDAL第二次大型强子对撞机质子对质子数据的分析做出重要贡献。此外，大型强子对撞机的铅对铅碰撞数据将被该小组分析为可能通过Schwinger机制产生磁单极子，这将是首次在这种背景下对这一过程进行实验研究。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。这项奖励反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.