Minicharges and magnetic monopoles

Abstract

Minicharged particles arise naturally in extensions of the Standard Model with a kinetic mixing term between the ordinary electromagnetic U(1) and an extra “hidden sector”U(1). In this note we study the compatibility of these particles with the existence of magnetic monopoles. We find that angular momentum quantization allows only certain combinations of ordinary and hidden monopole charge. Using the example where one of the U(1)s originates from a spontaneously broken SU(2), we demonstrate that exactly the allowed types of monopoles arise as 't Hooft–Polyakov monopoles.