I first quickly summarize the history of the Magnetic Monopole leading to the quantum theory of magnetic charge that started with a 1931 paper by Paul Dirac who showed that the existence of magnetic monopoles was consistent with Maxwell’s equations only if electric charges are quantized. Next I will briefly review the status of monopole searches. Last, but not least I discuss in more detail the MoEDAL experiment—the latest accelerator experiment designed to search for direct production of magnetic monopoles or dyons (particles with electric and magnetic charge) and other highly ionizing particles—such as heavy (pseudo‐) stable particles with conventional electric charge—at the LHC. The MoEDAL experiment employs nuclear track‐etch detectors deployed in the VELO vertex region of the LHCb experiment.

Topics
Design of experiments, Maxwell equations, Hypothetical particles, Quantum mechanics, Quantum theory, Physicists
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© 2010 American Institute of Physics.
2010
American Institute of Physics
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