Magnetic monopole

A magnetic monopole is a hypothetical particle carrying isolated magnetic charge, analogous to an electric charge. No monopole has been confirmed as a fundamental particle.

Maxwell's equations: The equations describing how electric and magnetic fields are produced and how they change. A magnetic charge would add source terms to the equations for magnetic fields.
Pierre Curie: A French physicist whose work included symmetry principles and the study of magnetism. Curie discussed the possibility of isolated magnetic poles in the 1890s.
Monopole detector: An instrument designed to identify magnetic monopoles through their unusual signals in matter or fields. Experiments use detector materials and sensors to seek the predicted magnetic charge.
Spin ice: A frustrated magnetic material whose excitations can behave like emergent magnetic monopoles. Its monopole-like quasiparticles are collective excitations, not isolated fundamental particles.
Magnetic monopole search: Experimental efforts to detect magnetic monopoles in cosmic rays, particle collisions, or matter. No confirmed detection has settled whether fundamental monopoles occur in nature.
Magnetic charge: A hypothetical charge that acts as a source or sink of magnetic fields. It is the defining property assigned to a magnetic monopole.
Paul Dirac: A British theoretical physicist who helped establish quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. His 1931 paper showed how a monopole could explain electric charge quantization.
MoEDAL: A particle-physics experiment at CERN designed to search for highly ionizing particles, including magnetic monopoles. Its passive detectors target monopoles produced in high-energy collisions.
Dirac monopole: A point magnetic charge described using a singular gauge potential and an unobservable Dirac string. This is the specific idealized monopole underlying Dirac's quantization argument.
Monopole mass: The mass assigned to a magnetic monopole in a particular theoretical model. Predicted masses vary widely and determine which experiments could produce or detect one.

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