Phenomenology of Fractionally Charged Particles: Two Reps Are Better Than One

2025/07/22 by Seth Koren, A. Martin, Koren, Seth +1 · 4 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics #Experimental and Theoretical Physics Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.16900

openalex publication_date 2025/07/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We continue our study of fractionally charged particles (FCPs) -- particles carrying electric charge a multiple of e/6. Discovering an FCP would inform us about both Standard Model physics (what the true gauge group and the one-form global symmetry are) and Beyond the Standard Model physics (ruling out many unified theories), which makes them a high-stakes target for collider searches. Here we find that with two FCPs there are vastly richer phenomenologies compared to the single-particle extensions we previously studied. Stringent constraints on colored FCPs can be dramatically weakened when decays are open; conversely the cross sections of the least visible species can be enlarged by up to ∼ 10³, increasing their discovery potential enormously at the LHC and milliQan. Overall, these simple models motivate performing searches for FCPs produced along with jets or leptons, and highlight 'free' discovery potential in reanalyzing existing missing-energy datasets for low-quality tracks.

Citations

• Charge quantisation, monopoles and emergent symmetry in the Standard Model and its embeddings
• Understanding the SM gauge group from SMEFT
• Fractional-charge hadrons and leptons to tell the Standard Model group apart
• Search for Fractionally Charged Particles in Proton-Proton Collisions at s=13 TeV
• Spontaneously Broken (-1)-Form U(1) Symmetries
• Axion Domain Walls, Small Instantons, and Non-Invertible Symmetry Breaking
• Axion-Gauge Coupling Quantization with a Twist
• Coupling a Cosmic String to a TQFT
• Higher Flavor Symmetries in the Standard Model
• Neutrino Masses from Generalized Symmetry Breaking
• Non-Invertible Chiral Symmetry and Exponential Hierarchies
• Non-invertible Global Symmetries in the Standard Model
• Axions, Higher-Groups, and Emergent Symmetry
• The State of Supersymmetry after Run I of the LHC
• Squark and Gluino Production at Hadron Colliders

Cited by

• Spurion Analysis of ℤ_M/ℤ₂ Non-Invertible Selection Rules: Low-Order versus All-Order Zeros
• Multi-Instantons, Multi-Axions, and Non-Invertible Symmetries in 4d QFT
• Gauging the Standard Model 1-form symmetry via gravitational instantons
• Extended Color Twin Higgs

Related

• Search for fractionally charged particles as lightly ionizing particles using public data from an underground direct detection experiment
• Fractional-charge hadrons and leptons to tell the Standard Model group apart
• Large bulk matter search for fractional charge particles
• Search for Fractionally Charged Particles in Proton-Proton Collisions at s=13 TeV
• Photons as a Probe of Minicharged Particles