Speaker
Description
The existence of the magnetic monopole has eluded physicists for centuries. The NOvA Far Detector (FD), used for neutrino oscillation searches, also has the ability to identify magnetic monopoles. With a surface area of 4,100 m$^2$ and a location near the earth’s surface, the 14 kt FD provides us with the unique opportunity to be sensitive to potential low-mass monopoles unable to penetrate underground experiments. We have designed a novel data-driven triggering scheme that continuously searches the FD’s live data for monopole-like patterns. At the offline level, the largest challenge in reconstructing monopoles is to reduce the 148,000 Hz speed-of-light cosmic ray background. In the absence of any signal events in a 95-day exposure of the FD, we set limits on the monopole flux of $2 \times 10^{-14} \mathrm{cm}^{-2} \mathrm{s}^{-1} \mathrm{sr}^{-1}$ at 90% C.L. for monopole speed $6 \times 10^{-4} < \beta < 5 \times 10^{-3}$ and mass greater than $5 \times 10^8$GeV. In this talk, I will review the current monopole results and discuss the sensitivities of future searches using more than 8 years of collected FD data.
| Collaboration / Activity | NOvA |
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