Magnetism in bar magnets and electromagnets is not caused by magnetic monopoles, and indeed, there is no known experimental or observational evidence that magnetic monopoles exist.
Some condensed matter systems contain effective (non-isolated) magnetic monopole quasi-particles, or contain phenomena that are mathematically analogous to magnetic monopoles.
The quantum theory of magnetic charge started with a paper by the physicist Paul Dirac in 1931. In this paper, Dirac showed that if any magnetic monopoles exist in the universe, then all electric charge in the universe must be quantized (Dirac quantization condition). The electric charge is, in fact, quantized, which is consistent with (but does not prove) the existence of monopoles.
In more recent years, a new class of theories has also suggested the existence of magnetic monopoles.
Several Grand unified theories (GUTs) were proposed, most of which implied the presence of a real magnetic monopole particle. More accurately, GUTs predicted a range of particles known as dyons, of which the most basic state was a monopole. The charge on magnetic monopoles predicted by GUTs is either 1 or 2 gD, depending on the theory.
The majority of particles appearing in any quantum field theory are unstable, and they decay into other particles in a variety of reactions that must satisfy various conservation laws.
Stable particles are stable because there are no lighter particles into which they can decay and still satisfy the conservation laws.
For instance, the electron has a lepton number of one and an electric charge of one, and there are no lighter particles that conserve these values. On the other hand, the muon, essentially a heavy electron, can decay into the electron plus two quanta of energy, and hence it is not stable.
Experimental searches for magnetic monopoles can be placed in one of two categories: those that try to detect preexisting magnetic monopoles and those that try to create and detect new magnetic monopoles.
High energy particle colliders have been used to try to create magnetic monopoles. Due to the conservation of magnetic charge, magnetic monopoles must be created in pairs, one north and one south. Due to conservation of energy, only magnetic monopoles with masses less than half of the center of mass energy of the colliding particles can be produced. Beyond this, very little is known theoretically about the creation of magnetic monopoles in high energy particle collisions.
The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider currently has the most stringent cross section limits for magnetic monopoles of 1 and 2 Dirac charges, produced through Drell-Yan pair production.
The MoEDAL experiment, installed at the Large Hadron Collider, is currently searching for magnetic monopoles and large supersymmetric particles using nuclear track detectors and aluminum bars around LHCb’s VELO detector. The particles it is looking for damage the plastic sheets that comprise the nuclear track detectors along their path, with various identifying features.
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