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The vacuum polarization energy is the leading quantum correction to the classical energy of a soliton. We study this energy for two-component solitons in one space dimension as a function of the soliton’s topological charge. We find that both the classical and the vacuum polarization energies are linear functions of the topological charge with a small offset. Because the combination of the classical and quantum offsets determines the binding energies, either all higher charge solitons are energetically bound or they are all unbound, depending on model parameters. This linearity persists even when the field configurations are very different from those of isolated solitons and would not be apparent from an analysis of their bound state spectra alone. Published by the American Physical Society2025
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Quantum corrections to soliton energies
We review recent progress in the computation of leading quantum corrections to the energies of classical solitons with topological structure, including multi-soliton models in one space dimension and string configurations in three space dimensions. Taking advantage of analytic continuation techniques to efficiently organize the calculations, we show how quantum corrections affect the stability of solitons in the Shifman–Voloshin model, stabilize charged electroweak strings coupled to a heavy fermion doublet, and bind Nielsen–Olesen vortices at the classical transition between type I and type II superconductors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1820700
- PAR ID:
- 10353730
- Editor(s):
- Milton, K.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Modern Physics A
- ISSN:
- 0217-751X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217751X22410044
