The Price of an Electroweak Monopole

Abstract

In a recent paper, Cho, Kim and Yoon (CKY) have proposed a version of the SU(2) $\times$ U(1) Standard Model with finite-energy monopole and dyon solutions. The CKY model postulates that the effective U(1) gauge coupling $\to \infty$ very rapidly as the Englert-Brout-Higgs vacuum expectation value $\to 0$, but in a way that is incompatible with LHC measurements of the Higgs boson $H\to {\hat{I}}^3{\hat{I}}^3$ decay rate. We construct generalizations of the CKY model that are compatible with the $H\to {\hat{I}}^3{\hat{I}}^3$ constraint, and calculate the corresponding values of the monopole and dyon masses. We find that the monopole mass could be $<5.5$ TeV, so that it could be pair-produced at the LHC and accessible to the MoEDAL experiment.

15 pages; Two clarifying footnotes (3 and 4) added. No effect on conclusions