Collisions of weakly-bound kinks in the Christ-Lee model

TL;DR

This paper studies how weakly-bound kinks in a scalar field theory collide, revealing that their interactions are best understood as sequences of subkink collisions, with radiation and oscillon formation playing significant roles.

Contribution

It demonstrates that kink collisions in the Christ-Lee model can be explained by subkink interactions and highlights the importance of radiation and oscillons, challenging static mode analysis.

Findings

Kink collisions are sequences of subkink collisions.

Static mode analysis is insufficient to explain resonances.

Radiation and oscillon formation significantly influence collision dynamics.

Abstract

We investigate soliton collisions a one-parameter family of scalar field theories in 1+1 dimensions which was first discussed by Christ and Lee. The models have a sextic potential with three local minima, and for suitably small values of the parameter its kinks have an internal structure in the form of two weakly-bound subkinks. We show that for these values of the parameter kink collisions are best understood as an independent sequence of collisions of these subkinks, and that a static mode analysis is not enough to explain resonant structures emerging in this model. We also emphasise the role of radiation and oscillon formation in the collision process.