Eur. Phys. J. C (2014) 74: 2938
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-014-2938-8

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Search for non-relativistic magnetic monopoles with IceCube

¹ III. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 , Aachen, Germany
² School of Chemistry and Physics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Dr., Anchorage, AK, 99508, USA
⁴ CTSPS, Clark-Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA, 30314, USA
⁵ School of civistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
⁶ Department of Physics, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70813, USA
⁷ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
⁸ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
⁹ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489 , Berlin, Germany
¹⁰ Fakultät für Physik & Astronomie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 , Bochum, Germany
¹¹ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Nussallee 12, 53115 , Bonn, Germany
¹² Université Libre de Bruxelles, Science Faculty CP230, 1050 , Brussels, Belgium
¹³ Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Dienst ELEM, 1050 , Brussels, Belgium
¹⁴ Department of Physics, Chiba University, Chiba, 263-8522, Japan
¹⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
¹⁶ Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
¹⁷ Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA
¹⁸ Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA
¹⁹ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100 , Copenhagen, Denmark
²⁰ Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University, 44221 , Dortmund, Germany
²¹ Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E1, Canada
²² Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058 , Erlangen, Germany
²³ Département de physique nucléaire et corpusculaire, Université de Genève, 1211 , Geneva, Switzerland
²⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Gent, 9000 , Gent, Belgium
²⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
²⁶ Laboratory for High Energy Physics, École Polytechnique Fédérale, 1015 , Lausanne, Switzerland
²⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA
²⁸ Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
²⁹ Department of Physics and Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
³⁰ Institute of Physics, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 7, 55099 , Mainz, Germany
³¹ Université de Mons, 7000 , Mons, Belgium
³² T.U. Munich, 85748 , Garching, Germany
³³ Bartol Research Institute and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716, USA
³⁴ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3NP, UK
³⁵ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, River Falls, WI, 54022, USA
³⁶ Oskar Klein Centre and Department of Physics, Stockholm University, 10691 , Stockholm, Sweden
³⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-3800, USA
³⁸ Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea
³⁹ Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A7, Canada
⁴⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA
⁴¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
⁴² Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA
⁴³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, 75120 , Uppsala, Sweden
⁴⁴ Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, 42119 , Wuppertal, Germany
⁴⁵ DESY, 15735 , Zeuthen, Germany

^* e-mail: mohamed.lotfi.benabderrahmane@desy.de
^** e-mail: schoenen@physik.rwth-aachen.de

Received: 14 February 2014
Accepted: 11 June 2014
Published online: 2 July 2014

Abstract

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a large Cherenkov detector instrumenting of Antarctic ice. The detector can be used to search for signatures of particle physics beyond the Standard Model. Here, we describe the search for non-relativistic, magnetic monopoles as remnants of the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) era shortly after the Big Bang. Depending on the underlying gauge group these monopoles may catalyze the decay of nucleons via the Rubakov–Callan effect with a cross section suggested to be in the range of to . In IceCube, the Cherenkov light from nucleon decays along the monopole trajectory would produce a characteristic hit pattern. This paper presents the results of an analysis of first data taken from May 2011 until May 2012 with a dedicated slow-particle trigger for DeepCore, a subdetector of IceCube. A second analysis provides better sensitivity for the brightest non-relativistic monopoles using data taken from May 2009 until May 2010. In both analyses no monopole signal was observed. For catalysis cross sections of the flux of non-relativistic GUT monopoles is constrained up to a level of at a 90 % confidence level, which is three orders of magnitude below the Parker bound. The limits assume a dominant decay of the proton into a positron and a neutral pion. These results improve the current best experimental limits by one to two orders of magnitude, for a wide range of assumed speeds and catalysis cross sections.