On the stability of gauge fields in higher dimensions (Q912413)

According to the authors there are two distinct constructions that give rise to field theories in spaces of higher dimension that generalize Yang-Mills gauge theory. The first of these, called the generalized Yang- Mills systems (GYM), is based on the space \({\mathbb{R}}_{4p}\), whereas the second, called the extended Yang-Mills system (EYM), has \({\mathbb{R}}_{2n}\) (n\(\geq 2)\) as its base manifold. The two theories have distinct Lagrangians that are defined in terms of the curvature 2-forms associated with \(so_{\pm}(4p)\) and \(so_{\pm}(2n)\) respectively. The objective of this paper is the investigation of the stability of the solutions of both systems. It is found that solutions of the EYM systems, whose action is not endowed with a topological lower bound, are unstable. In contrast, solutions of the GYM systems are stable by virtue of the fact that their actions are bounded from below by a topological (surface) integral.