Recent Developments in the Skyrme Model

In this talk, we describe recent developments in the Skyrme model. Our main focus is on discussing various effects which need to be taken into account, when calculating the properties of light atomic nuclei in the Skyrme model. We argue that an important step is to understand "spinning Skyrmions" and discuss the theory of relative equilibria in this context.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at 15th International Seminar on High Energy Physics: Quarks - 2008, Sergiev Posad, Russia, 23-29 May 200

Dynamics of vortices with magnetic impurities

We investigate the dynamics of BPS vortices in the presence of magnetic impurities taking the form of axially-symmetric localised lumps and delta-functions. We present numerical results for vortices on flat space, as well as exact results for vortices on hyperbolic space in the presence of delta-function impurities. In fact, delta-function impurities of appropriate strength can be captured within the moduli space approximation by keeping one or more of the vortices fixed. We also show that previous work on vortices on the 2-sphere extends naturally to the inclusion of delta-function impurities

Vortices and magnetic impurities

Ginzburg-Landau vortices in superconductors attract or repel depending on whether the value of the coupling constant λ is less than 1 or larger than 1. At critical coupling λ=1,it was previously observed that a strongly localised magnetic impurity behaves very similarly to a vortex. This remains true for axially symmetric configurations away from critical coupling. In particular, a delta function impurity of a suitable strength is related to a vortex configuration without impurity by singular gauge transformation. However, the interaction of vortices and impurities is more subtle and depends not only on the coupling constant λ and the impurity strength, but also on how broad the impurity is. Furthermore, the interaction typically depends on the distance and may be attractive at short distances and repulsive at long distances. Numerical simulations confirm moduli space approximation results for the scattering of one and two vortices with an impurity. However, a double vortex will split up when scattering with an impurity, and the direction of the split depends on the sign of the impurity. Head-on collisions of a single vortex with different impurities away from critical coupling is also briefly discussed

Dynamics of multi-kinks in the presence of wells and barriers

Sine-Gordon kinks are a much studied integrable system that possesses multi-soliton solutions. Recent studies on sine-Gordon kinks with space-dependent square-well-type potentials have revealed interesting dynamics of a single kink interacting with wells and barriers. In this paper, we study a class of smooth space-dependent potentials and discuss the dynamics of one kink in the presence of different wells. We also present values for the critical velocity for different types of barriers. Furthermore, we study two kinks interacting with various wells and describe interesting trajectories such as double-trapping, kink knock-out and double-escape.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Baby Skyrme models without a potential term

We develop a one-parameter family of static baby Skyrme models that do not require a potential term to admit topological solitons. This is a novel property as the standard baby Skyrme model must contain a potential term in order to have stable soliton solutions, though the Skyrme model does not require this. Our new models satisfy an energy bound that is linear in terms of the topological charge and can be saturated in an extreme limit. They also satisfy a virial theorem that is shared by the Skyrme model. We calculate the solitons of our new models numerically and observe that their form depends significantly on the choice of parameter. In one extreme, we find compactons while at the other there is a scale invariant model in which solitons can be obtained exactly as solutions to a Bogomolny equation. We provide an initial investigation into these solitons and compare them with the baby Skyrmions of other models

Fermions, Skyrmions and the 3-Sphere

This paper investigates a background charge one Skyrme field chirally coupled to light fermions on the 3-sphere. The Dirac equation for the system commutes with a generalised angular momentum or grand spin. It can be solved explicitly for a Skyrme configuration given by the hedgehog form. The energy spectrum and degeneracies are derived for all values of the grand spin. Solutions for non-zero grand spin are each characterised by a set of four polynomials. The paper also discusses the energy of the Dirac sea using zeta function regularization.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Moduli Spaces of Lumps on Real Projective Space

Harmonic maps that minimize the Dirichlet energy in their homotopy classes are known as lumps. Lump solutions on real projective space are explicitly given by rational maps subject to a certain symmetry requirement. This has consequences for the behaviour of lumps and their symmetries. An interesting feature is that the moduli space of charge three lumps is a D2-symmetric 7-dimensional manifold of cohomogeneity one. In this paper, we discuss the charge three moduli spaces of lumps from two perspectives: discrete symmetries of lumps and the Riemann-Hurwitz formula. We then calculate the metric and find explicit formula for various geometric quantities. We also discuss the implications for lump decay

Scattering of Skyrmions

In this paper, we present a detailed study of Skyrmion-Skyrmion scattering for two B=1 Skyrmions in the attractive channel where we observe two different scattering regimes. For large separation, the scattering can be approximated as interacting dipoles. We give a qualitative estimate when this approximation breaks down. For small separations we observe an additional short-range repulsion which is qualitatively similar to monopole scattering. We also observe the interesting effect of "rotation without rotating" whereby two Skyrmions, whose orientations remain constant while well-separated, change their orientation after scattering. We can explain this effect by following preimages through the scattering process, thereby measuring which part of an in-coming Skyrmion forms part of an out-going Skyrmion. This leads to a new way of visualising Skyrmions. Furthermore, we consider spinning Skyrmions and find interesting trajectories

Homotopy of rational maps and the quantization of Skyrmions

The Skyrme model is a classical field theory which models the strong interaction between atomic nuclei. It has to be quantized in order to compare it to nuclear physics. When the Skyrme model is semi-classically quantized it is important to take the Finkelstein-Rubinstein constraints into account. The aim of this paper is to show how to calculate these FR constraints directly from the rational map ansatz using basic homotopy theory. We then apply this construction in order to quantize the Skyrme model in the simplest approximation, the zero mode quantization. This is carried out for up to 22 nucleons, and the results are compared to experiment