MoEDAL (Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC) is a

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Experiment

MoEDAL shares the cavern at Point 8 with

LHCb The LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) experiment is one of eight particle physics detector experiments collecting data at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. LHCb is a specialized b-physics experiment, designed primarily to measure the paramet ...

, and its prime goal is to directly search for the

magnetic monopole In particle physics, a magnetic monopole is a hypothetical elementary particle that is an isolated magnet with only one magnetic pole (a north pole without a south pole or vice versa). A magnetic monopole would have a net north or south "magneti ...

(MM) or

dyon In physics, a dyon is a hypothetical particle in 4-dimensional theories with both electric and magnetic charges. A dyon with a zero electric charge is usually referred to as a magnetic monopole. Many grand unified theories predict the existence of ...

and other highly ionizing stable massive particles (SMPs) and pseudo-stable massive particles via the

Schwinger effect The Schwinger effect is a predicted physical phenomenon whereby matter is created by a strong electric field. It is also referred to as the Sauter–Schwinger effect, Schwinger mechanism, or Schwinger pair production. It is a prediction of quantu ...

. To detect these particles, the project uses nuclear track detectors (NTDs), which suffer characteristic damage due to highly ionizing particles. As MMs and SMPs are highly ionizing, NTDs are perfectly suited for the purpose of detection. It is an international research collaboration whose spokesperson is the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

James Pinfold James Lewis Pinfold (born 1950 in Ealing, West London) is a British-Canadian physicist, specializing in particle physics. Education and career Pinfold graduated in physics in 1972 with a B.Sc. from Imperial College London and in 1977 with a Ph. ...

. It is the seventh experiment at the LHC, was approved and sanctioned by the CERN research board in May 2010, and started its first test deployment in January 2011. In 2012 MoEDAL accuracy surpassed accuracy of similar experiments. A new detector was installed in 2015, but as of 2017 it also did not find any magnetic monopoles, setting new limits on their production cross section.

References

External links

http://moedal.web.cern.ch/

MoEDAL experiment record
on INSPIRE-HEP {{coord, 46.235753, N, 6.055092, E, region:CH-GE_type:landmark_source:dewiki, display=title CERN experiments Particle experiments Large Hadron Collider