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Search for Millicharged Particles in Proton-Proton Collisions at s=13.6  TeV

S. Alcott1, Z. Bhatti2, J. Brooke3, C. Campagnari1, M. Carrigan4, M. Citron5, R. De Los Santos4, A. De Roeck6, C. Dorofeev7 et al.

T. Du8, M. Gastal6, J. Goldstein3, F. Golf9, N. Gonzalez5,10,*, A. Haas2, J. Heymann8, C. S. Hill4, D. Imani1, M. Joyce4, K. Larina1, R. Loos6, S. Lowette11, H. Mei12, D. W. Miller8, B. Peng4, S. N. Santpur1, I. Reed9, E. Schaffer1, R. Schmitz1, J. Steenis5, D. Stuart1, J. S. Tafoya Vargas5, D. Vannerom11, T. Wybouw11, Z. Xiao4,†, H. Zaraket13, G. Zecchinelli9, and C. Zheng4

  • *Present address: Stanford University, Palo Alto, California 94305, USA.
  • †Present address: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 121802 – Published 15 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rtp1-679h

Abstract

We report on a search for elementary particles with charges much smaller than the electron charge using a data sample of proton-proton collisions provided by the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2023–24, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 124.7  fb−1 at a center-of-mass energy of 13.6 TeV. The analysis presented uses the completed Run 3 milliQan bar detector to set the most stringent constraints to date for particles with charges ≤0.24  e and masses ≥0.45  GeV.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 121802– Published 15 September, 2025
  • Received 6 June 2025
  • Accepted 20 August 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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