Forces between kinks and antikinks with long-range tails

In a scalar field theory with a symmetric octic potential having a quartic minimum and two quadratic minima, kink solutions have long-range tails. We calculate the force between two kinks and between a kink and an antikink when their long-range tails overlap. This is a nonlinear problem, solved usin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of physics. A, Mathematical and theoretical Vol. 52; no. 6; pp. 65401 - 65418
Main Author Manton, N S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IOP Publishing 08.02.2019
Subjects
force
kinks
long-range tail
scalar field
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Summary:In a scalar field theory with a symmetric octic potential having a quartic minimum and two quadratic minima, kink solutions have long-range tails. We calculate the force between two kinks and between a kink and an antikink when their long-range tails overlap. This is a nonlinear problem, solved using an adiabatic ansatz for the accelerating kinks that leads to a modified, first-order Bogomolny equation. We find that the kink-kink force is repulsive and decays with the fourth power of the kink separation. The kink-antikink force is attractive and decays similarly. Remarkably, the kink-kink repulsion has four times the strength of the kink-antikink attraction.
Bibliography:JPhysA-110908.R1
ISSN:1751-8113
1751-8121
DOI:10.1088/1751-8121/aaf9d1