Göttingen 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 23: Searches/BSM II (Non-collider)

T 23.5: Vortrag

Dienstag, 1. April 2025, 17:15–17:30, ZHG010

Search for Sub-Relativistic Magnetic Monopoles with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory — •Jonas Häußler, Jakob Böttcher, Christopher Wiebusch, and Peter-John Cusack — RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Magnetic monopoles are Beyond-Standard-Model particles, predicted by Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) to be created during their freeze-out in the early universe. At typical masses of the GUT-scale - above 10¹⁴ GeV - these particles would move at sub-relativistic speeds. The Rubakov-Callan effect predicts that magnetic monopoles can catalyze proton decays. This results in a unique signature of small particle cascades along the trajectory of the slow-moving particle. Since 2012, a dedicated Slow-Particle Filter has been implemented in the IceCube Neutrino Observatory for the detection of magnetic monopoles. The low, if existent, flux of the monopoles requires exceptional background rejection and signal efficiency. This is accomplished using machine learning methods. For this analysis we use a multi-level Boosted-Decision-Tree classifier. We present the strategy behind the background and signal simulation, the classification efficiency, and the projected sensitivity of IceCube for the detection of sub-relativistic magnetic monopoles.

Keywords: Magnetic Monopoles; IceCube; Beyond-Standard-Model; Boosted-Decision-Trees