Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 55, Number 6, September II 2001
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 788 - 794 | |
Section | The physics of elementary particles and fields | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2001-00349-x | |
Published online | 01 December 2003 |
van der Waals σ-model and its topological excitations
L. D. Landau Institute - Kosyghin Str. 2, Russia, 117334 and
Max Planck Institute - Nothnitzer Str. 38, Dresden, Germany
Received:
18
October
2000
Accepted:
27
June
2001
It is shown that the 3D vector van der Waals nonlinear
σ-model (NSM) on a sphere S2 has two types of
topological excitations: reminiscent vortices and instantons of 2D NSM.
The first ones, the hedgehogs, are described by the homotopic group
and have logarithmic energies. They are an analog
of 2D vortices. The second ones, corresponding to 2D instantons, are
the hopfions. They are described by the homotopic group
,
or the Hopf invariant
, and have finite energy.
The possibility of a topological
phase transition in this model and its
applications are briefly discussed.
PACS: 11.15.Kc – Classical and semiclassical techniques / 11.27.+d – Extended classical solutions; cosmic strings, domain walls, texture / 61.30.Jf – Defects in liquid crystals
© EDP Sciences, 2001
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.