Twisted Vortices in a Gauge Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper provides numerical evidence that a specific gauge field theory supports stable, twisted vortex solitons, which are important for understanding complex topological structures in various physical systems.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the existence of stable, twisted vortex solitons in a gauge field theory through numerical analysis of axis-symmetric solutions.

Findings

Identification of a minimum in the energy spectral function indicating stable twisted vortices

Numerical evidence supporting the existence of stable toroidal solitons

Analysis of energy dependence on twist per unit length

Abstract

We inspect a particular gauge field theory model that describes the properties of a variety of physical systems, including a charge neutral two-component plasma, a Gross-Pitaevskii functional of two charged Cooper pair condensates, and a limiting case of the bosonic sector in the Salam-Weinberg model. It has been argued that this field theory model also admits stable knot-like solitons. Here we produce numerical evidence in support for the existence of these solitons, by considering stable axis-symmetric solutions that can be thought of as straight twisted vortex lines clamped at the two ends. We compute the energy of these solutions as a function of the amount of twist per unit length. The result can be described in terms of a energy spectral function. We find that this spectral function acquires a minimum which corresponds to a nontrivial twist per unit length, strongly suggesting that the model indeed supports stable toroidal solitons.