Quantum Energies of Solitons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to accurately compute the quantum energies of solitons in renormalizable models, using a variational approach, demonstrated on a 1+1 dimensional example.

Contribution

It presents a new unambiguous method for calculating the quantum energies of solitons in renormalizable field theories.

Findings

Method successfully computes quantum energies of solitons.

Application to a 1+1 dimensional model illustrates the approach.

Discussion of quantum energies for translationally invariant configurations.

Abstract

For renormalizable models a method is presented to unambiguously compute the energy that is carried by localized field configurations (solitons). A variational approach for the total energy is utilized to search for soliton configurations. As an example a 1+1 dimensional model is considered. The quantum energy of configurations that are translationally invariant for a subset of coordinates is discussed.