A new anomalous contribution to the central charge of the N=2 monopole

Abstract

We calculate the one-loop corrections to the mass and central charge of the BPS monopole in N=2 super-Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions using a supersymmetry-preserving version of dimensional regularization adapted to solitons. In the renormalization scheme where previous studies have indicated vanishing quantum corrections, we find nontrivial corrections that we identify as the 3+1 dimensional analogue of the anomaly in the conformal central charge of the N=1 supersymmetric kink in 1+1 dimensions. As in the latter case, the associated contribution to the ordinary central charge has exactly the required magnitude to preserve BPS saturation at the one-loop level. It also restores consistency of calculations involving sums over zero-point energies with the low-energy effective action of Seiberg and Witten.Comment: 1+10 pages. v3: version to appear in Physics Letters B (more precise title and abstract, additional explanations in the text concerning the nature of the anomaly involved