SU(3) monopoles and their fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates the structure and properties of charge two SU(3) monopoles with minimal symmetry breaking, focusing on their field configurations, moduli space, and the role of a surrounding 'cloud' region.

Contribution

It provides an explicit analysis of the monopole fields, moduli space metric, and the effects of the cloud region in SU(3) monopoles, extending previous SU(2) monopole studies.

Findings

The cloud size moduli space splits as a product of Atiyah-Hitchin space and R^4.

Long-range field solutions and energy density distributions are characterized.

The moduli space metric is expressed explicitly, revealing the monopole's geometric structure.

Abstract

Some aspects of the fields of charge two SU(3) monopoles with minimal symmetry breaking are discussed. A certain class of solutions look like SU(2) monopoles embedded in SU(3) with a transition region or ``cloud'' surrounding the monopoles. For large cloud size the relative moduli space metric splits as a direct product AH\times R^4 where AH is the Atiyah-Hitchin metric for SU(2) monopoles and R^4 has the flat metric. Thus the cloud is parametrised by R^4 which corresponds to its radius and SO(3) orientation. We solve for the long-range fields in this region, and examine the energy density and rotational moments of inertia. The moduli space metric for these monopoles, given by Dancer, is also expressed in a more explicit form.