Quantum Corrections to Soliton Energies

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in calculating quantum corrections to soliton energies, highlighting methods and implications for soliton stability and interactions across various models.

Contribution

It introduces analytic continuation techniques for computing quantum corrections and demonstrates their application to diverse soliton configurations.

Findings

Quantum corrections influence soliton stability.

Charged electroweak strings can be stabilized by quantum effects.

Nielsen-Olesen vortices are bound at the superconductor transition.

Abstract

We review recent progress in the computation of leading quantum corrections to the energies of classical solitons with topological structure, including multi-soliton models in one space dimension and string configurations in three space dimensions. Taking advantage of analytic continuation techniques to efficiently organize the calculations, we show how quantum corrections affect the stability of solitons in the Shifman-Voloshin model, stabilize charged electroweak strings coupled to a heavy fermion doublet, and bind Nielsen-Olesen vortices at the classical transition between type I and type II superconductors.