Dirac Magnetic Monopole Production from Photon Fusion in Proton Collisions

Understand

We calculate the lowest order cross--section for Dirac magnetic monopole production from photon fusion in p p-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV, p p collisions at sqrt{s}=14 TeV, and we compare photon fusion with Drell--Yan (DY) production.

• We find the total photon fusion cross--section is comparable with DY at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV and dominates DY by a factor ~50 at sqrt{s}=14 TeV.
• We conclude that both the photon fusion and DY processes allow for a monopole mass limit m>370 GeV based upon the null results of the recent monopole search at the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF).
• We also conclude that photon fusion is the leading production mechanism to be considered for direct monopole searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).