Hopf solitons on compact manifolds

TL;DR

This paper explores simplified Hopf soliton solutions on compact 3-manifolds within the Skyrme-Faddeev model's strong-coupling limit, revealing topological bounds and analyzing solutions on various manifolds.

Contribution

It characterizes and investigates Hopf solitons on compact manifolds like S^3, T^3, and S^2×S^1, highlighting simplified structures and topological bounds in the strong-coupling limit.

Findings

Existence of a topological lower bound E ≥ Q on energy.

Simplified local minima structures for large Hopf number Q.

Analysis of solutions on specific compact manifolds.

Abstract

Hopf solitons in the Skyrme-Faddeev system on $R^3$ typically have a complicated structure, in particular when the Hopf number Q is large. By contrast, if we work on a compact 3-manifold M, and the energy functional consists only of the Skyrme term (the strong-coupling limit), then the picture simplifies. There is a topological lower bound $E\geq Q$ on the energy, and the local minima of E can look simple even for large Q. The aim here is to describe and investigate some of these solutions, when M is $S^3$, $T^3$ or $S^2 \times S^1$. In addition, we review the more elementary baby-Skyrme system, with M being $S^2$ or $T^2$.