The Abelian Higgs model and the Georgi-Glashow model in 2 and 3 Euclidean
dimensions respectively, support both finite size instantons and sphalerons.
The instantons are the familiar Nielsen-Oleson vortices and the 't
Hooft-Polyakov monopole solutions respectively. We have constructed the
sphaleron solutions and calculated the Chern-Simons charges N_cs for sphalerons
of both models and have constructed two types of noncontractible loops between
topologically distinct vacuua. In the 3 dimensional model, the sphaleron and
the vacuua have zero magnetic and electric flux while the configurations on the
loops have non vanishing magnetic flux.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures, LaTe
