Low-Mass Magnetic Monopoles in the Galaxy: Simulations and Comparison with Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Data
Abstract
Origin and composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays are still uncertain, particularly the rare events exceeding the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff and whose apparent arrival directions point to the Local Void. This work is an in-depth investigation of the possibility that such cosmic rays contain low-mass magnetic monopoles predicted in several recent theoretical models. Using a custom extension to CRPropa, a state-of-the-art code for modeling cosmic ray propagation, monopoles are tracked in the galactic environment under realistic assumptions on mass, magnetic charge, and initial phase-space distributions. Our simulations demonstrate that relic MMs follow filamentary ``Galactic magnetic funnels'', producing anisotropic arrival directions at Earth. The expected arrival directions are concentrated in a small region of the sky, which has significant implications for the design and interpretation of future searches. A comparison of the simulated arrival directions with the Pierre Auger Observatory dataset shows that the null hypothesis - no monopole contribution - is statistically preferred for the majority of cases. Using a profile-likelihood analysis that incorporates both directional and energy information, we set 90% C.L. upper limits on the integral MM flux of < 2.1×10−23 cm−2s−1sr−1.
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BibTeX
@misc{alzetoun2026lowmass,
title = {{Low-Mass Magnetic Monopoles in the Galaxy: Simulations and Comparison with Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Data}},
author = {Ala'a AL-Zetoun and Igor Ostrovskiy and Peiwen Mi and Daniele Perri},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.10784},
eprint = {2609.10784},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10784},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Low-Mass Magnetic Monopoles in the Galaxy: Simulations and Comparison with Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Data
AU - Ala'a AL-Zetoun
AU - Igor Ostrovskiy
AU - Peiwen Mi
AU - Daniele Perri
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.10784
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10784
AB - Origin and composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays are still uncertain, particularly the rare events exceeding the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff and whose apparent arrival directions point to the Local Void. This work is an in-depth investigation of the possibility that such cosmic rays contain low-mass magnetic monopoles predicted in several recent theoretical models. Using a custom extension to CRPropa, a state-of-the-art code for modeling cosmic ray propagation, monopoles are tracked in the galactic environment under realistic assumptions on mass, magnetic charge, and initial phase-space distributions. Our simulations demonstrate that relic MMs follow filamentary ``Galactic magnetic funnels'', producing anisotropic arrival directions at Earth. The expected arrival directions are concentrated in a small region of the sky, which has significant implications for the design and interpretation of future searches. A comparison of the simulated arrival directions with the Pierre Auger Observatory dataset shows that the null hypothesis - no monopole contribution - is statistically preferred for the majority of cases. Using a profile-likelihood analysis that incorporates both directional and energy information, we set 90% C.L. upper limits on the integral MM flux of < 2.1×10^−23 cm^−2s^−1sr^−1.
ER -