Search for fractionally charged particles as lightly ionizing particles using public data from an underground direct detection experiment

Abstract

Approximately 60 years after the Milligan oil drop experiment in 1909, fractionally charged particles (FCPs) were reported to have been discovered in air-shower cores, and the search for FCPs continues to the present day in space, terrestrial and underground experiments. In this letter, relativistic FCPs are examined as lightly ionizing particles in underground direct detection on the basis of electron recoil data from XENON-nT. For FCPs from supernova shocks, the best results are obtained via direct detection, excluding the FCP charge of $\left(3.6\times10^{-9} - 1.0\times10^{-2}\right)\cdot e$ corresponding to an FCP mass of 1 keV--556 GeV. For FCPs from general sources, the best limit is achieved, which is far ahead of other results in almost the entire parameter space, by excluding the FCP flux of $\left(4.0\times10^{-4} - 4.0\times10^{-16}\right)$ cm$^{-2}\cdot$ s$^{-1}\cdot$ sr$^{-1}$ corresponding to the FCP charge of $\left(1\times10^{-6} - 1\right)\cdot e$.