https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10608-2
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Search for highly-ionizing particles in pp collisions at the LHC’s Run-1 using the prototype MoEDAL detector
1
Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology Group, Physics Department, King’s College London, London, UK
2
IEAP, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
3
INFN, Section of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
4
School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
5
Institute of Space Science, Bucharest, Măgurele, Romania
6
Experimental Physics Department, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
7
Center for Quantum Spacetime, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea
8
Physics Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
9
Theoretical Physics Department, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
10
Department of Physics, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada
11
Department of Earth Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
12
Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
13
Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
14
Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, Université de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland
15
Département de Physique, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
16
INFN, Section of Bologna and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
17
Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
18
IFIC, Universitat de València-CSIC, Valencia, Spain
19
Physics Department, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
20
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
21
Physics Department, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada
22
Institute for Research in Schools, Canterbury, UK
23
Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK
24
Research Centre for Astronomy, Astrophysics and Geophysics, Algiers, Algeria
25
Department of Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
26
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
27
INFN, CNAF, Bologna, Italy
28
International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy
29
CAPSS, Department of Physics, Bose Institute, Kolkata, India
30
National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Tallinn, Estonia
31
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt
32
Department of Physics, School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Received:
23
December
2021
Accepted:
13
July
2022
Published online:
10
August
2022
A search for highly electrically charged objects (HECOs) and magnetic monopoles is presented using 2.2 
of 
collision data taken at a centre of mass energy (E
) of 8 TeV by the MoEDAL detector during LHC’s Run-1. The data were collected using MoEDAL’s prototype Nuclear Track Detectord array and the Trapping Detector array. The results are interpreted in terms of Drell–Yan pair production of stable HECO and monopole pairs with three spin hypotheses (0, 1/2 and 1). The search provides constraints on the direct production of magnetic monopoles carrying one to four Dirac magnetic charges and with mass limits ranging from 590 GeV/c
to 1 TeV/c. Additionally, mass limits are placed on HECOs with charge in the range 10e to 180e, where e is the charge of an electron, for masses between 30 GeV/c and 1 TeV/c.
© The Author(s) 2022
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Funded by SCOAP3. SCOAP3 supports the goals of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development.
