Accelerator Cavities as a Probe of Millicharged Particles

We investigate Schwinger pair production of millicharged fermions in the strong electric field of cavities used for particle accelerators. Even without a direct detection mechanism at hand, millicharged particles, if they exist, contribute to the energy loss of the cavity and thus leave an imprint on the cavity's quality factor. Already conservative estimates substantially constrain the electric charge of these hypothetical particles; the resulting bounds are competitive with the currently best laboratory bounds which arise from experiments based on polarized laser light propagating in a magnetic field. We propose an experimental setup for measuring the electric current comprised of the millicharged particles produced in the cavity.