Search for highly-ionizing particles in $pp$ collisions at the LHC’s Run-1 using the prototype MoEDAL detector

A search for highly electrically charged objects (HECOs) and magnetic monopoles is presented using 2.2 $\hbox {fb}{^{-1}}$ of $p-p$ collision data taken at a centre of mass energy (E$_{CM}$) of 8 TeV by the MoEDAL detector during LHC’s Run-1. The data were collected using MoEDAL’s prototype Nuclear Track Detectord array and the Trapping Detector array. The results are interpreted in terms of Drell–Yan pair production of stable HECO and monopole pairs with three spin hypotheses (0, 1/2 and 1). The search provides constraints on the direct production of magnetic monopoles carrying one to four Dirac magnetic charges and with mass limits ranging from 590 GeV/c$^{2}$ to 1 TeV/c$^{2}$. Additionally, mass limits are placed on HECOs with charge in the range 10e to 180e, where e is the charge of an electron, for masses between 30 GeV/c$^{2}$ and 1 TeV/c$^{2}$.