Speaker
Description
Magnetic monopoles arise in many beyond Standard Model scenarios, restore the symmetry of Maxwell's equations, and explain the quantization of electric charge. In this work, we explore monopole-induced oscillations of the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF). We show that these oscillations lead to a collimating effect on the trajectories of electrically charged particles, reducing the usual deflection by the magnetic field. This collimation effect impacts the deflection within the electromagnetic cascades of TeV blazars and leads to a decrease in the angular size of secondary GeV halos. Therefore, the non-observation of the secondary GeV halo translates into bounds on the magnetic monopole abundance. The bounds on the magnetic monopole flux obtained in this work from the blazar 1sES 0229+200, depending on the IGMF strength, can be as strong as $F \lesssim 10^{-22}\, \text{cm}^{-2}\, \text{s}^{-1}\, \text{sr}^{-1}$ for low-mass monopoles $m \lesssim 10^8\, \text{GeV}$, which are stronger than existing laboratory and astrophysical bounds. The bound becomes subdominant to current constraints if the present-day IGMF value is larger than $B \gtrsim 10^{-12}$ G. At the same time, in the case of non-zero monopole abundance, the IGMF lower bound from TeV observations itself should be revised, resulting in a stronger lower bound at higher monopole number densities.