UNN scientists propose a new approach to detecting magnetically charged particles in outer space

For nearly a hundred years, scientists around the world have been trying to discover sources of magnetic fields - monopoles - to no avail. These hypothetical magnetic charges result in the symmetry of Maxwell's equation and have been predicted by a number of physical theories.

Lobachevsky University radiophysicists have hypothesised that monopoles can originate in exceptionally strong magnetic fields. The scientists proposed to search for the elusive particles in outer space by studying magnetars, the most powerful magnets in the Universe, which are a special type of neutron stars.

“We have modelled the processes that presumably occur during the birth of monopoles in extremely strong magnetic fields of magnetars. If these phenomena are registered by the facilities of international observatories, science will get one of the proofs of the existence of magnetic charges“,  said the author of the study, Dr. Alexey Klyuev, Head of the Research Laboratory of Advanced Quantum Frequency Standards and Precise Time Systems at the UNN Faculty of Radiophysics.

According to the scientists' theory, monopoles escape from the magnetar and take away part of the magnetic field energy. The rotation of the neutron star slows down and causes fluctuations in the spin period of magnetar called “noise”. The lighter the monopoles, the greater their number that should be produced and the easier it would be to detect this noise with modern technology.

“The magnitude of changes in the magnetic field and rotation of the magnetar during the birth of particles is quite small. Detecting them is like detecting a change in the temperature of Lake Baikal into which a glass of boiling water has been poured! In order for experimental facilities to be able to register deviations in the rotation of magnetars, we have described their spectrum. This opens the way to an experiment that will confirm the theory of the birth of magnetic monopoles or give scientists new insight into their mass and charge. Either result will be very important for astrophysics and modern science in general,” Alexey Klyuev noted.

The research was carried out in the Laboratory of Advanced Quantum Frequency Standards and Precision Time Systems, which was established at the UNN Department of Oscillation Theory and Automatic Control as part of the Priority 2030 Strategic Academic Leadership Program. The results were published in the world's leading astrophysics journal Physical Review D.

Earlier, in 2019, the models developed by the Nizhny Novgorod researchers were already used to detect the noise of magnetic quasi-monopoles in spin ice. The article on the study, conducted by an international group of scientists, was published in the journal Nature.