Learning from Dark Monopoles
Dr. Christopher Verhaaren
Postdoctoral Scholar
Department of Physics & Astronomy, UC Irvine
Magnetic monopoles appear in many motivated quantum field theories, and are intimately tied to electric charge quantization. This same quantization condition implies that the monopoles of our familiar electrodynamics have a large, nonperturbative, coupling to the photon, making it difficult to provide trustworthy theoretical and phenomenological predictions regarding the interaction between electric and magnetic particles.
If, however, a dark sector with magnetic monopoles of a dark U(1) gauge field has a small mixing with our photon, then the dark monopoles can develop a small, perturbative, magnetic coupling to our photon. This provides a theoretical laboratory for learning about the interactions between electric and magnetic charges in quantum field theory. I show how to use the Zwanziger Lagrangian to understand kinetic mixing in the context of electric and magnetic charges. I explain how we can understand perturbative interactions between electric and magnetic particles, and outline aspects of the scattering and production of dark monopoles.
Hosted by Prof. Tsai
All interested persons are invited to attend remotely—email physics@nd.edu for information.
Originally published at physics.nd.edu.