MoEDAL, MAPP and future endeavours

Abstract

The unprecedented collision energy of the LHC has opened up a new discovery frontier, however, without any signs of new physics in sight. The first LHC dedicated search experiment, MoEDAL, started data taking for Run 2. MoEDAL is designed to search highly ionising particle avatars of new physics using 𝑝 𝑝 and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. The planned upgrade for MoEDAL at Run 3 of the LHC -the MAPP detector (MoEDAL Apparatus for Penetrating Particles) -will extend MoEDAL's physics reach to include feebly interacting, long-lived messengers of physics beyond the Standard Model. This will allow the experiment to explore a number of models of new physics, including dark sector models, in a complementary way to that of conventional LHC collider experiment detectors. Furthermore, a possible astroparticle extension to MoEDAL, called Cosmic-MoEDAL, will allow the search for magnetic monopoles to be continued from the TeV scale to the GUT scale. This paper focuses on recent results and plans for the LHC Run 3.

Searching for a single photon from lightest neutralino decays in R-parity-violating supersymmetry at FASER

“…In particular, a series of dedicated far-detector programs have been proposed to be operated in the vicinity of LHC interaction points (IPs), mainly aiming to look for LLPs with a proper decay length cτ ∼ (1 − 100) m, or even larger. Some examples currently under discussion include FASER [46,47], FACET [48], MATHUSLA [40,49,50], CODEX-b [51], ANUBIS [52], and MoEDAL-MAPP [53].…”

Report of the Topical Group on Physics Beyond the Standard Model at Energy Frontier for Snowmass 2021

“…Due to its proximity to the beamline, its expected backgrounds are highly non-trivial and deserve further study. The MoEDAL-MAPP detector [386] would consist out of a nested boxes of scintillator hodoscope detectors, located in the forward region at the LHCb interaction point, targeting similar parameter space as FACET. These options are further explored in the Snowmass Rare Processes and Precision Frontier Report [387].…”

“…The MoEDAL experiment [392,393] is a largely passive detector, designed to search for magnetic monopoles and highly ionizing charged particles. It has been operation at the LHCb interaction point since Run 1; see [386] for a recent overview of results. In addition to Drell-Yan production in pp collisions, magnetic monopoles may also be produced through the Schwinger process in heavy ion collisions [254,394].…”

First search for magnetic monopoles through the Schwinger mechanism

“…Such portal scenarios attempt to explain observed phenomena in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology such as the non-zero neutrino masses and oscillations, the dark matter [87,88] and the baryon asymmetry of the universe, among others. MAPP Phase 1 was approved by the CERN Research Board in 2021 [89] and it is currently being deployed in the UA83 tunnel some 100 m from IP8, protected by cosmic rays by an overburden of ∼ 100 m of limestone [90]. MAPP Phase 2 is going to be in operation in HL-LHC and extend MAPP-1 physics reach [?…”