Related papers: Semilocal Defects
Semilocal defects are those formed in field theories with spontaneously broken symmetries, where the vacuum manifold $M$ is fibred by the action of the gauge group in a non-trivial way. Studied in this paper is the simplest such class of…
Formation and evolution of topological defects in course of non-equilibrium symmetry breaking phase transitions is of wide interest in many areas of physics, from cosmology through condensed matter to low temperature physics. Its study in…
We review a class of non-topological defects in the standard electroweak model, and their implications. Starting with the semilocal string, which provides a counterexample to many well known properties of topological vortices, we discuss…
We demonstrate that field theories involving explicit breaking of continous symmetries, incorporate two generic classes of topological defects each of which is stable for a particular range of parameters. The first class includes defects of…
We systematically analyze the decay of metastable topological defects that arise from the spontaneous breakdown of gauge or global symmetries. Quantum-mechanical tunneling rates are estimated for a variety of decay processes. The decay rate…
These lectures start with an elementary introduction to the subject of magnetic monopoles which should be accesible from any physics background. In the Weinberg-Salam model of electroweak interactions, magnetic monopoles appear at the ends…
We study topological defects in the Georgi-Machacek model in a hierarchical symmetry breaking in which extra triplets acquire vacuum expectation values before the doublet. We find a possibility of topologically stable non-Abelian domain…
Our understanding of the mechanism by which topological defects are formed in symmetry breaking phase transitions has recently changed. We examine the non-equilibrium dynamics of defect formation for weakly-coupled global O(N) theories…
The mechanism of the interplay between superconductivity and magnetism is one of the intriguing and challenging problems in physics. Theory has predicted that the ferromagnetic order can coexist with the superconducting order in the form of…
We show the existence of self-dual semilocal nontopological vortices in a $\Phi^2$ Chern-Simons (C-S) theory. The model of scalar and gauge fields with a $SU(2)_{global} \times U(1)_{local}$ symmetry includes both the C-S term and an…
We review recent work on a new class of topological defects which possess a nonsymmetric core. They arise in scalar field theories with global symmetries, U(1) for domain walls and SU(2) for vortices, which are explicitly broken to $Z_2$…
We investigate the mechanism by which topological defects form in first order phase transitions with a charged order parameter. We show how thick superconductor vortices and heavy cosmic strings form by trapping of magnetic flux. In an…
Superconductors exhibit unconventional electronic and magnetic properties if the Cooper pair wave function breaks additional symmetries of the normal phase. Rotational symmetries in spin- and orbital spaces, as well as discrete symmetries…
The presence of magnetic monopole like excitations of nonabelian varieties is one of the subtlest consequences of spontaneously broken gauge symmetries. Important hints about their quantum mechanical properties, which remained long…
There are a large number of systems characterized by a completely broken gauge symmetry, but with an unbroken global color-flavor diagonal symmetry, i.e., systems in the so-called color-flavor locked phase. If the gauge symmetry breaking…
Models of two-dimensional (2D) traps, with the double-well structure in the third direction, for Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) are introduced, with attractive or repulsive interactions between atoms. The models are based on systems of…
We study the stability properties of the twisted vortex solutions in the semilocal Abelian Higgs model with a global $\mathbf{SU}(2)$ invariance. This model can be viewed as the Weinberg-Salam theory in the limit where the non-Abelian gauge…
We propose a field theoretical model that exhibits spontaneous breaking of the rotational symmetry. The model has a two-dimensional sphere as extra dimensions of the space-time and consists of a complex scalar field and a background gauge…
The paper investigates the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetries in gauge theories from a philosophical angle, taking into account the fact that the notion of a spontaneously broken local gauge symmetry, though widely employed in…
It is well-known that localized topological defects (solitons) experience recoil when they suffer an impact by incident particles. Higher-dimensional topological defects develop distinctive wave patterns propagating along their worldvolume…