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A "common" way to try to detect magnetic monopoles is to look for otherwise inexplicable changes in the current carried in a superconducting loop. The idea there is that the radial field surrounding the monopole will induce a current in the loop as the monopole passes through the loop.

Are there any good reasons not to (A) use an array of small superconductive loops instead of a single loop to provide positional information, and/or (B) use two or more stacked layers of loops and look for simultaneous current changes in loops in the two layers? It seems that these embellishments might make it possible to determine the magnetic charge and mass of a monopole, by measuring the amount of deflection due to application of an external magnetic field between layers. They might also make false positive detections less likely.

S. McGrew
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  • So you are saying more loops could be better, but maybe there could be a downside? Like maybe multiple loops affecting the ability of another to detect? –  Oct 30 '19 at 03:51
  • Yes, something like that. But my hunch is that an array of loops would be just as senstitive as one big loop, and that a quantum "uptick" of current in a small loop would be much less likely to affect another small loop a given distance downstream than a large loop to affect another large loop the same distance downstream. – S. McGrew Oct 30 '19 at 04:11

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