Integrality of the monopole number in SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs theory on \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) (Q1058219): Difference between revisions

The author proves that in classical SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs theories on \(R^ 3\) with a Higgs field in the adjoint representation, an integer- valued monopole number (magnetic charge) is canonically defined for any finite-action \(L^ 2_{1,loc}\) configuration. In particular the result is true for smooth configurations. The monopole number is shown to decompose the configuration space into path components.