Abstract: A search for highly electrically charged objects (HECOs) and magnetic monopoles is presented using 2.2 fb(-1) of p – p collision data taken at a centre of mass energy (E-CM) of 8 TeV by the MoEDAL detector during LHC's Run-1. The data were collected using MoEDAL's prototype Nuclear Track Detectord array and the Trapping Detector array. The results are interpreted in terms of Drell-Yan pair production of stable HECO and monopole pairs with three spin hypotheses (0, 1/2 and 1). The search provides constraints on the direct production of magnetic monopoles carrying one to four Dirac magnetic charges and with mass limits ranging from 590 GeV/c(2) to 1 TeV/c(2). Additionally, mass limits are placed on HECOs with charge in the range 10e to 180e, where e is the charge of an electron, for masses between 30 GeV/c(2) and 1 TeV/c(2).

Abstract: It is currently widely accepted that gluons, while massless at the level of the fundamental QCD Lagrangian, acquire an effective mass through the non-Abelian implementation of the classic Schwinger mechanism. The key dynamical ingredient that triggers the onset of this mechanism is the formation of composite massless poles inside the fundamental vertices of the theory. These poles enter the evolution equation of the gluon propagator and nontrivially affect the way the Slavnov-Taylor identities of the vertices are resolved, inducing a smoking-gun displacement in the corresponding Ward identities. In this article, we present a comprehensive review of the pivotal concepts associated with this dynamical scenario, emphasizing the synergy between functional methods and lattice simulations and highlighting recent advances that corroborate the action of the Schwinger mechanism in QCD.

Abstract: The MoEDAL trapping detector consists of approximately 800 kg of aluminum volumes. It was exposed during run 2 of the LHC program to 6.46 fb(-1) of 13 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHCb interaction point. Evidence for dyons (particles with electric and magnetic charge) captured in the trapping detector was sought by passing the aluminum volumes comprising the detector through a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer. The presence of a trapped dyon would be signaled by a persistent current induced in the SQUID magnetometer. On the basis of a Drell-Yan production model, we exclude dyons with a magnetic charge ranging up to five Dirac charges (5g(D)) and an electric charge up to 200 times the fundamental electric charge for mass limits in the range 870-3120 GeV and also monopoles with magnetic charge up to and including 5g(D) with mass limits in the range 870-2040 GeV.

Abstract: We present a comprehensive study of the quark sector of 2 + 1 flavor QCD, based on a self-consistent treatment of the coupled system of Schwinger-Dyson equations for the quark propagator and the full quark-gluon vertex in the one-loop dressed approximation. The individual form factors of the quark-gluon vertex are expressed in a special tensor basis obtained from a set of gauge-invariant operators. The sole external ingredient used as input to our equations is the Landau gauge gluon propagator with 2 + 1 dynamical quark flavors, obtained from studies with Schwinger-Dyson equations, the functional renormalization group approach, and large volume lattice simulations. The appropriate renormalization procedure required in order to self-consistently accommodate external inputs stemming from other functional approaches or the lattice is discussed in detail, and the value of the gauge coupling is accurately determined at two vastly separated renormalization group scales. Our analysis establishes a clear hierarchy among the vertex form factors. We identify only three dominant ones, in agreement with previous results. The components of the quark propagator obtained from our approach are in excellent agreement with the results from Schwinger-Dyson equations, the functional renormalization group, and lattice QCD simulation, a simple benchmark observable being the chiral condensate in the chiral limit, which is computed as (245 MeV)(3). The present approach has a wide range of applications, including the self-consistent computation of bound-state properties and finite temperature and density physics, which are briefly discussed.

Abstract: We present a detailed study of the dynamics associated with the ghost sector of quenched QCD in the Landau gauge, where the relevant dynamical equations are supplemented with key inputs originating from large-volume lattice simulations. In particular, we solve the coupled system of Schwinger-Dyson equations that governs the evolution of the ghost dressing function and the ghost-gluon vertex, using as input for the gluon propagator lattice data that have been cured from volume and discretization artifacts. In addition, we explore the soft gluon limit of the same system, employing recent lattice data for the three-gluon vertex that enters in one of the diagrams defining the Schwinger-Dyson equation of the ghost-gluon vertex. The results obtained from the numerical treatment of these equations are in excellent agreement with lattice data for the ghost dressing function, once the latter have undergone the appropriate scale-setting and artifact elimination refinements. Moreover, the coincidence observed between the ghost-gluon vertex in general kinematics and in the soft gluon limit reveals an outstanding consistency of physical concepts and computational schemes.