Fractional Vortices and Lumps

TL;DR

This paper explores fractional vortices in various Higgs models, highlighting their topological stability, substructures, and the conditions for their occurrence, such as vacuum degeneracy and BPS properties.

Contribution

It identifies key ingredients for fractional vortices, classifies them into two types based on vacuum moduli space features, and illustrates these with concrete models.

Findings

Fractional vortices have notable substructures in energy distribution.

They occur in models with vacuum degeneracy and BPS conditions.

Two types of fractional vortices are classified based on vacuum moduli space features.

Abstract

We study what might be called fractional vortices, vortex configurations with the minimum winding from the viewpoint of their topological stability, but which are characterized by various notable substructures in the transverse energy distribution. The fractional vortices occur in diverse Abelian or non-Abelian generalizations of the Higgs model. The global and local features characterizing these are studied, and we identify the two crucial ingredients for their occurrence - the vacuum degeneracy leading to non-trivial vacuum moduli M, and the BPS nature of the vortices. Fractional vortices are further classified into two kinds. The first type of such vortices appear when M has orbifold Z_n singularities; the second type occurs in systems in which the vacuum moduli space M possesses either a deformed geometry or some singularity. These general features are illustrated with several concrete models.