Fluctons

TL;DR

This paper introduces fluctons as a new class of nonperturbative topological vacuum fluctuations in gauge theories, extending the concept beyond instantons and highlighting their role in topological phases.

Contribution

It proposes fluctons as a novel nonperturbative topological fluctuation, generalizing instantons, and analyzes their moduli space and implications for vacuum topology in gauge theories.

Findings

Fluctons extend the concept of instantons to more general smooth fields.

The dimension of flucton moduli space is determined using the Atiyah-Singer index theorem.

Topological phases of vacuum are not limited to self-dual fields in non-Abelian gauge theories.

Abstract

From the perspective of topological field theory we explore the physics beyond instantons. We propose the fluctons as nonperturbative topological fluctuations of vacuum, from which the self-dual domain of instantons is attained as a particular case. Invoking the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, we determine the dimension of the corresponding flucton moduli space, which gives the number of degrees of freedom of the fluctons. An important consequence of these results is that the topological phases of vacuum in non-Abelian gauge theories are not necessarily associated with self-dual fields, but only with smooth fields. Fluctons in different scenarios are considered, the basic aspects of the quantum mechanical amplitude for fluctons are discussed, and the case of gravity is discussed briefly.