The hunt for the elusive magnetic monopole. Why and how searches are made

by Prof. David Milstead (Department of Physics, Stockholm University, Sweden)

Thursday 15 May 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Warsaw

The field of particle physics is currently in a state that is unprecedented in th epast 50 years. The Standard Model of Particle Physics has withstood high-sensitivity falsification tests and is now experimentally complete following the discovery of the Higgs boson at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. However, several open questions remain that the Standard Model cannot answer. The lectures will include a general overview of possible options for future colliders, as well as two dedicated talks on searches for new phenomena: magnetic monopoles and baryon number violation. Discoveries in these areas could address key open questions such as the quantisation of electric charge and the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry, respectively.

In the current lecture: Dirac's argument and Grand Unified Theories. Understanding electric chargé quantisation. Searches in cosmic rays, at the Large Hadron Collider, and in bound matter. Reports of possible discoveries that could not be reproduced.

Lectures_Prof_D_Milstead.pdf