New physics searches with heavy-ion collisions at the LHC

Abstract

This document summarises proposed searches for new physics accessible in the heavy-ion mode at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), both through hadronic and ultraperipheral ${\hat{I}}^3{\hat{I}}^3$ interactions, and that have a competitive or, even, unique discovery potential compared to standard proton-proton collision studies. Illustrative examples include searches for new particles -- such as axion-like pseudoscalars, radions, magnetic monopoles, new long-lived particles, dark photons, and sexaquarks as dark matter candidates -- as well as new interactions, such as non-linear or non-commutative QED extensions. We argue that such interesting possibilities constitute a well-justified scientific motivation, complementing standard quark-gluon-plasma physics studies, to continue running with ions at the LHC after the Run-4, i.e. beyond 2030, including light and intermediate-mass ion species, accumulating nucleon-nucleon integrated luminosities in the accessible fb${}^{-1}$ range per month.

20 pages, 6 figures. Minor updates to match the final version published as JPG 47 (2020) 060501. (A slightly reduced version of this document was submitted as input to the update of the European Particle Physics Strategy EPPS-2019)