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Ginzburg-Landau vortices in superconductors attract or repel depending on whether the value of the coupling constant is less than 1 or larger than 1. At critical coupling 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 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., 39 pages, 18 figures, this version is accepted for publication in PRD

Two recently found coupled BPS submodels of the Skyrme model are further analyzed. Firstly, we provide a geometrical formulation of the submodels in terms of the eigenvalues of the strain tensor. Secondly, we study their thermodynamical properties and show that the mean-field equations of state coincide at high pressure and read $p=\bar{\rho}/3$. We also provide evidence that matter described by the first BPS submodel has some similarity with a Bose-Einstein condensate. Moreover, we show that extending the second submodel to a non-BPS model by including certain additional terms of the full Skyrme model does not spoil the respective ansatz, leading to an ordinary differential equation for the profile of the Skymion, for any value of the topological charge. This allows for an almost analytical description of the properties of Skyrmions in this model. In particular, we analytically study the breaking and restoration of the BPS property. Finally, we provide an explanation of the success of the rational map ansatz., Comment: LaTex file, 27 pages, 5 figures. v2: An error in Section V (old version) corrected, paper slightly reorganised, main conclusions unchanged. v3: version accepted for publication in PRD, minor changes

It is well known that the low-energy classical dynamics of solitons of Bogomol'nyi type is well approximated by geodesic motion in M_n, the moduli space of static n-solitons. There is an obvious quantization of this dynamics wherein the wavefunction evolves according to the Hamiltonian H_0 equal to (half) the Laplacian on M_n. Born-Oppenheimer reduction of analogous mechanical systems suggests, however, that this simple Hamiltonian should receive corrections including k, the scalar curvature of M_n, and C, the n-soliton Casimir energy, which are usually difficult to compute, and whose effect on the energy spectrum is unknown. This paper analyzes the spectra of H_0 and two corrections to it suggested by work of Moss and Shiiki, namely H_1=H_0+k/4 and H_2=H_1+C, in the simple but nontrivial case of a single CP^1 lump moving on the two-sphere. Here M_1=TSO(3), a noncompact kaehler 6-manifold invariant under an SO(3)xSO(3) action, whose geometry is well understood. The symmetry gives rise to two conserved angular momenta, spin and isospin. A hidden isometry of M_1 is found which implies that all three energy spectra are symmetric under spin-isospin interchange. The Casimir energy is found exactly on the zero section of TSO(3), and approximated numerically on the rest of M_1. The lowest 19 eigenvalues of H_i are found for i=0,1,2, and their spin-isospin and parity compared. The curvature corrections in H_1 lead to a qualitatively unchanged low-level spectrum while the Casimir energy in H_2 leads to significant changes. The scaling behaviour of the spectra under changes in the radii of the domain and target spheres is analyzed, and it is found that the disparity between the spectra of H_1 and H_2 is reduced when the target sphere is made smaller., Comment: 35 pages, 3 figures

Harmonic maps that minimise 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 $7$-dimensional manifold of cohomogeneity one which can be described as a one-parameter family of symmetry orbits of $D_2$ symmetric maps. 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 formulas for various geometric quantities. We also discuss the implications for lump decay., Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures, this version is accepted for publication in JMP

In this paper we show how to quantize Hopf solitons using the Finkelstein-Rubinstein approach. Hopf solitons can be quantized as fermions if their Hopf charge is odd. Symmetries of classical minimal energy configurations induce loops in configuration space which give rise to constraints on the wave function. These constraints depend on whether the given loop is contractible. Our method is to exploit the relationship between the configuration spaces of the Faddeev-Hopf and Skyrme models provided by the Hopf fibration. We then use recent results in the Skyrme model to determine whether loops are contractible. We discuss possible quantum ground states up to Hopf charge Q=7., 22 pages, no figures. Minor corrections: final published version

The traditional approach to fixing the parameters of the Skyrme model requires the energy of a spinning Skyrmion to reproduce the nucleon and delta masses. The standard Skyrme parameters, which are used almost exclusively, fix the pion mass to its experimental value and fit the two remaining Skyrme parameters by approximating the spinning Skyrmion as a rigid body. In this paper we remove the rigid body approximation and perform numerical calculations which allow the spinning Skyrmion to deform and break spherical symmetry. The results show that if the pion mass is set to its experimental value then the nucleon and delta masses can not be reproduced for any values of the Skyrme parameters; the commonly used Skyrme parameters are simply an artifact of the rigid body approximation. However, if the pion mass is taken to be substantially larger than its experimental value then the nucleon and delta masses can be reproduced. This result has a significant effect on the structure of multi-Skyrmions., Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures

This paper discusses Skyrmions on the 3-sphere coupled to fermions. The resulting Dirac equation commutes with a generalized angular momentum G. For G = 0 the Dirac equation can be solved explicitly for a constant Skyrme configuration and also for a SO(4) symmetric hedgehog configuration. We discuss how the spectrum changes due to the presence of a non-trivial winding number, and also consider more general Skyrme configurations numerically., 31 pages, 6 figures

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., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures; updated to match published version in Phys. Rev. D

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., 17 pages, 8 figures

The Skyrme model is a non-linear field theory whose solitonic solutions, once quantised, describe atomic nuclei. The classical static soliton solutions, so-called Skyrmions, have interesting discrete symmetries and can only be calculated numerically. Mathematically, these Skyrmions can be viewed as maps between to two three-manifolds and, as such, their stable singularities can only be folds, cusps and swallowtails. Physically, the occurrence of singularities is related to negative baryon density. In this paper, we calculate the charge three Skyrmion to a high resolution in order to examine its singularity structure in detail. Thereby, we explore regions of negative baryon density. We also discuss how the negative baryon density depends on the pion mass., Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures

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., 19 pages, 2 figures

We study the motion of vortices in the planar Ginzburg-Landau model with Schrodinger-Chern-Simons dynamics. We compare the moduli space approximation with the results of numerical simulations of the full field theory and find that there is agreement if the coupling constant is very close to the critical value separating Type I from Type II superconductors. However, there are significant qualitative differences even for modest deviations from the critically coupled regime. Radiation effects produce forces which are of the same order of magnitude as the intervortex force and therefore have a significant impact on vortex motion. We conclude that the moduli space approximation does not provide a good description of the dynamics in this regime., 24 pages and 10 figures. Appendix added. Version to appear in Nonlinearity

The Skyrme model is a classical field theory modelling 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. Recently, a simple formula has been derived to calculate the these constraints for Skyrmions which are well-approximated by rational maps. However, if a pion mass term is included in the model, Skyrmions of sufficiently large baryon number are no longer well-approximated by the rational map ansatz. This paper addresses the question how to calculate Finkelstein-Rubinstein constraints for Skyrme configurations which are only known numerically., Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure

Numerical methods are used to compute sphaleron solutions of the Skyrme model. These solutions have topological charge zero and are axially symmetric, consisting of an axial charge n Skyrmion and an axial charge -n antiSkyrmion (with n greater than one), balanced in unstable equilibrium. The energy is slightly less than twice the energy of the axially symmetric charge n Skyrmion. A similar configuration with n=1 does not produce a sphaleron solution, and this difference is explained by considering the interaction of asymptotic pion dipole fields. For sphaleron solutions with n greater than four the positions of the Skyrmion and antiSkyrmion merge to form a circle, rather than isolated points, and there are some features in common with Hopf solitons of the Skyrme-Faddeev model., 17 pages, 6 figures

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., 29 pages, 2 tables

There are only three stable singularities of a differentiable map between three-dimensional manifolds, namely folds, cusps and swallowtails. A Skyrme configuration is a map from space to SU(2), and its singularities correspond to the points where the baryon density vanishes. In this paper we consider the singularity structure of Skyrme configurations. The Skyrme model can only be solved numerically. However, there are good analytic ansaetze. The simplest of these, the rational map ansatz, has a non-generic singularity structure. This leads us to introduce a non-holomorphic ansatz as a generalization. For baryon number two, three and four, the approximate solutions derived from this ansatz are closer in energy to the true solutions than any other ansatz solution. We find that there is a tiny amount of negative baryon density for baryon number three, but none for two or four. We comment briefly on the relationship to Bogomolny-Prasad-Sommerfield monopoles., 25 pages, 5 figures

This paper discusses multi-skyrmions on the 3-sphere with variable radius L using the rational map ansatz. For baryon number B = 3,...,9 this ansatz produces the lowest energy solutions known so far. By considering the geometry of the model we find an approximate analytic formula for the shape function. This provides an insight why skyrmions have a shell-like structure., Comment: 27 pages, 14 figures, minor corrections, references updated

Sine-Gordon kinks are a much studied integrable system that possesses multi-soliton solutions. Recent studies on sine-Gordon kinks with spacedependent 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.

Exact metrics on some totally geodesic submanifolds of the moduli space of static hyperbolic N-vortices are derived. These submanifolds, denoted as Sigma_{n,m}, are spaces of C_n-invariant vortex configurations with n single vortices at the vertices of a regular polygon and m=N?n coincident vortices at the polygon's center. The geometric properties of Sigma_{n,m} are investigated, and it is found that Sigma_{n,n?1} is isometric to the hyperbolic plane of curvature ?(3 pi n)^{?1}. The geodesic flow on Sigma_{n,m} and a geometrically natural variant of geodesic flow recently proposed by Collie and Tong [“The dynamics of Chern-Simons vortices,” Phys. Rev. D Part. Fields Gravit. Cosmol. 78, 065013 (2008);e-print arXiv:hep-th/0805.0602] are analyzed in detail.