Signatures of Ultrarelativistic Magnetic Monopoles in Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes

Magnetic monopoles are predicted to exist in a wide class of theoretical extensions to the standard model of particle physics. Experimental searches for magnetic monopoles have been conducted without confirmed success since the famous Dirac 1931 paper explaining the experimental fact of electric charge quantisation with the existence of magnetic monopoles. A new strategy to search for ultrarelativistic ( γ> 10 3 ) and massive ( Mc 2 > 1 TeV) magnetic monopoles with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes is discussed. Sensitivity estimates for H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) are given and compared to existing flux upper limits.