Massless Monopoles and Multipronged Strings

TL;DR

This paper explores the role and properties of massless magnetic monopoles in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories, highlighting their emergence in various symmetry-breaking scenarios and their nonabelian charge-carrying capabilities.

Contribution

It reveals new insights into how massless monopoles appear and behave in different gauge symmetry breaking contexts within supersymmetric theories.

Findings

Massless monopoles can carry nonabelian electric charge.

They appear in both unbroken and broken gauge symmetry scenarios.

Massless monopoles are linked to multi-pronged string configurations.

Abstract

We investigate the role of massless magnetic monopoles in the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills Higgs theories. They can appear naturally in the 1/4-BPS dyonic configurations associated with multi-pronged string configurations. Massless magnetic monopoles can carry nonabelian electric charge when their associated gauge symmetry is unbroken. Surprisingly, massless monopoles can also appear even when the gauge symmetry is broken to abelian subgroups.