Ongoing magnetic monopole searches with IceCube

Abstract

The IceCube collaboration has instrumented a cubic kilometer of ice with 5160 photo-multipliers. While mainly developed to detect Cherenkov light, any visible light can be used to detect particles within the ice. Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical particles predicted by many theories that extend the Standard model of Particle Physics. They are carriers of a single elementary magnetic charge. For this particle, different light production mechanisms dominate from direct Cherenkov light at highly relativistic velocities (> 0.76 c), indirect Cherenkov light at mildly relativistic velocities (≈ 0.5 c to 0.76 c), luminescence light at low relativistic velocities ( 0.1 c to 0.5 c), as well as catalysis of proton decay at non relativistic velocities ( 0.1 c). For each of this speed ranges, searches for magnetic monopoles at the IceCube experiment are either in progress or they have already set the worlds best limits on the flux of magnetic monopoles. A summary of these searches will be presented, outlining already existing results as well as methods used by the currently conducted searches.