We discuss gluon production by the Schwinger mechanism in collinear color-electric and magnetic fields which may be realized in pre-equilibrium stages of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Fluctuations of non-Abelian gauge fields around a purely color-magnetic field contain exponentially growing unstable modes in a longitudinally soft momentum region, which is known as the Nielsen--Olesen instability. With a color-electric field imposed parallelly to the color-magnetic field, we can formulate this instability as the Schwinger mechanism. This is because soft unstable modes are accelerated by the electric fields to escape from the instability condition. Effects of instability remain in the transverse spectrum of particle modes, leading to an anomalously intense Schwinger particle production.
We obtain an effective string theory of the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortices of the Abelian Higgs model. The theory has an anomaly free effective string action which, when the extrinsic curvature is set equal to zero, yields the Nambu-Goto action. This generalizes previous work in which a string representation was obtained in the London limit, where the magnitude of the Higgs field is fixed. Viewed as a model for long distance QCD, it provides a concrete picture of the QCD string as a fluctuating Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex of a dual superconductor on the border between type I and type II…
We consider a generalization of abelian Chern-Simons-Higgs model by introducing a nonstandard kinetic term. In particular we show that the Bogomolnyi equations of the abelian Higgs theory may be obtained, being its solutions Nielsen-Olesen vortices with electric charge. In addition we study the self-duality equations for a generalized non-relativistic Maxwell-Chern-Simons model.
We analyze the behavior of unstable modes in the glasma produced in high energy heavy ion collisions, using a simple model with effective homogeneous longitudinal color electric and magnetic fields. The unstable modes are approximately described as Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes under the homogeneous longitudinal gauge fields. We find that the Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes show properties very similar to those of the exponentially increasing unstable modes in the glasma recently shown by Romatschke and Venugopalan. Although initial gauge fields in the glasma are much stronger than the ones in o…
We revisit the classical instability of closed strings in the Abelian Higgs model. The instability is expressed by a vanishing energy as the torus-like configuration shrinks to zero size. We treat the radius of the torus as a collective coordinate and demonstrate that a quantum mechanical treatment of this coordinate leads to a stabilization of the closed string at small radii.
In the large flux limit vortices become flux tubes with almost constant magnetic field in the interior region. This occurs in the case of non-Abelian vortices as well, and the study of such configurations allows us to reveal a close relationship between vortex zero modes and the gyromagnetic instabilities of vector bosons in a strong background magnetic field discovered by Nielsen, Olesen and Ambjørn. The BPS vortices are exactly at the onset of this instability, and the dimension of their moduli space is precisely reproduced in this way. We present a unifying picture in which, through the stu…
We investigate analytically and numerically the asymptotic behavior of the Nielsen-Olesen vortex solutions and show that they approach their asymptotic values exponentially but with exponents that differ from the ones quoted in the literature. In particular, it is shown that for values of the Higgs self-coupling that are larger than a critical value, both the Higgs field and the gauge field approach exponentially their asymptotic values with {\it equal} exponents that are {\it independent} of the Higgs self-coupling.
Using Mueller's dipole formalism for deep inelastic scattering in QCD, we formulate and solve the evolution for the generating function for the multiplicities of the produced particles, in hadronic processes at high energy. The solution for the multiplicities satisfies Koba-Nielsen-Olesen (KNO) scaling, with good agreement with the recently re-analyzed data from the H1 experiment at HERA (DESY), and the old ALEPH data for hadronic $Z$ decay at LEP (CERN). The same scaling function with KNO scaling, carries to the hadronic multiplicities from jets in electron-positron annihilation. This agreeme…
We investigate the behaviour of a model with two oppositely charged scalar fields. In the Bogomol'nyi limit this may be seen as the scalar sector of N=1 supersymmetric QED, and it has been shown that cosmic strings form. We examine numerically the model out of the Bogomol'nyi limit, and show that this remains the case. We then add supersymmetry-breaking mass terms to the supersymmetric model, and show that strings still survive. Finally we consider the extension to N=2 supersymmetry with supersymmetry-breaking mass terms, and show that this leads to the formation of stable cosmic strings, unli…
We study properties of Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen (ANO) strings with the Coleman-Weinberg (CW) potential, which we call CW-ANO strings. While the scale-invariant scalar potential has a topologically trivial vacuum admitting no strings at the classical level, quantum correction allows topologically nontrivial vacua and stable string solutions. We find that the system of the CW potential exhibits significant difference from that of the conventional Abelian-Higgs model with the quadratic-quartic potential. While a single-winding string is qualitatively similar in both systems, and the static interv…
Zero modes of strings in the abelian Higgs model are analyzed. In spite of the fact that the gauge symmetry is not broken in the string center, the corresponding zero mode is shown to exist and to see it one has to analyze carefully the dependence on transverse coordinates for the excitations. The analysis of this kind is also important for the Witten model of superconducting string. Unusual properties of the zero modes connected with the broken gauge symmetry in the string background are investigated. One of the modes carries the current quite similar to that in the Witten model and gives bac…
We consider soliton solutions to Bekenstein's theory, for which the fine structure constant $α=e^2/(4π\hbar c)$ is allowed to vary due to the presence of a dielectric field pervading the vacuum. More specifically we investigate the effects of a varying $α$ upon a complex scalar field with a U(1) electromagnetic gauge symmetry subject to spontaneous symmetry breaking. We find vortex solutions to this theory, similar to the Nielsen-Olesen vortex. Near the vortex core the electric charge is typically much larger than far away from the string, lending these strings a superconducting flavour. In ge…
Vortex configurations in the electroweak gauge theory are investigated. Two gauge-inequivalent solutions of the field equations, the Z and W vortices, have previously been found. They correspond to embeddings of the abelian Nielsen-Olesen vortex solution into a U(1) subgroup of SU(2)xU(1). It is shown here that any electroweak vortex solution can be mapped into a solution of the same energy with a vanishing upper component of the Higgs field. The correspondence is a gauge equivalence for all vortex solutions except those for which the winding numbers of the upper and lower Higgs components add…
It is shown that there is a second properly normalized KNO scaling function, $nP_n(n/\bar n)=φ(z)$, which has certain advantages in the analysis of KNO scaling. First, the $nP_n$ are not influenced by the statistical and systematic uncertainties of $\bar n$ hence $φ(z)$ provides more selective power than the original KNO scaling function $\bar nP_n(n/\bar n)=ψ(z)$. Second, the new scaling function generates scale parameter $σ=1$ since it depends only on the combination of $z$ and the scale parameter of $ψ(z)$. An analysis of $φ(z)$ is given using $e^+e^-$ annihilation data for charged particle…
The stability of an abelian (Nielsen-Olesen) vortex embedded in the electroweak theory against W production is investigated in a gauge defined by the condition of a single-component Higgs field. The model is characterized by the parameters $β=({M_H\over M_Z})^2$ and $γ=\cos^2θ_{\rm w}$ where $θ_{\rm w}$ is the weak mixing angle. It is shown that the equations for W's in the background of the Nielsen-Olesen vortex have no solutions in the linear approximation. A necessary condition for the nonlinear equations to have a solution in the region of parameter space where the abelian vortex is classi…
New solutions to the abelian U(1) Higgs model, corresponding to vortices of integer and half-integer winding number bound onto the edges of domain walls and possibly surrounded by annular current flows, are described, based on a fine-grained analysis of the topology of such configurations in spacetime. The existence of these states, which saturate BPS bounds in specific limits and are quite reminiscent of D-branes and membranes in general, could have interesting and some important consequences in a wide range of physical contexts. For instance, they raise the possibility that for some regimes …
We modify the standard Abelian-Higgs model by introducing spatially-dependent couplings for the scalar and vector fields. We investigate static, non-cylindrically symmetric solutions of the resulting field equations and propose a pinch solution which interpolates between degenerate vacua along the string, labelled by $\pm |n|$. This configuration corresponds to a vortex which shrinks to Planck scale before re-emerging as an anti-vortex, resulting in the formation of a bead pair with one bead at either side of the intersection. The solution is then topologically stable. A key assumption is that…
A homogeneous color magnetic field is known to be unstable for the fluctuations perpendicular to the field in the color space (the Nielsen-Olesen instability). We argue that these unstable modes, exponentially growing, generate an azimuthal magnetic field with the original field being in the z-direction, which causes the Nielsen-Olesen instability for another type of fluctuations. The growth rate of the latter unstable mode increases with the momentum p_z and can become larger than the former's growth rate which decreases with increasing p_z. These features may explain the interplay between th…
We find evidence for the existence of solutions of the Einstein and Abelian Higgs field equations describing a black hole pierced by a Nielsen-Olesen vortex. This situation falls outside the scope of the usual no-hair arguments due to the non-trivial topology of the vortex configuration and the special properties of its energy-momentum tensor. By a combination of numerical and perturbative techniques we conclude that the black hole horizon has no difficulty in supporting the long range fields of the Nielsen Olesen string. Moreover, the effect of the vortex can in principle be measured from inf…
Within the non-Abelian SU(2) Proca-Higgs theory, we study localised axially symmetric solutions possessing a finite field energy. It is shown that in a certain sense such solutions are analogues of the Nielsen-Olesen tube, since they have a longitudinal magnetic field creating a flux of this field over the central cross-section of the Proca tube. The main difference between the Proca tube and the Nielsen-Olesen tube is that the Proca tube is described by a topologically trivial solution and has finite size, since its energy density decreases exponentially with distance. The dependence of the t…
We study static cosmic string solutions in the context of Bekenstein-type models. We show that there is a class of models of this type for which the classical Nielsen-Olesen vortex is still a valid solution. However, in general static string solutions in Bekenstein-type models strongly depart from the standard Nielsen-Olesen solution with the electromagnetic energy concentrated along the string core seeding spatial variations of the fine structure constant, $α$. We consider models with a generic gauge kinetic function and show that equivalence principle constraints impose tight limits on the a…
We study out-of-equilibrium dynamics of intense non-abelian gauge fields. Generalizing the well-known Nielsen-Olesen instabilities for constant initial color-magnetic fields, we investigate the impact of temporal modulations and fluctuations in the initial conditions. This leads to a remarkable coexistence of the original Nielsen-Olesen instability and the subdominant phenomenon of parametric resonance. Taking into account that the fields may be correlated only over a limited transverse size, we model characteristic aspects of the dynamics of color flux tubes relevant in the context of heavy-i…
We classify the spectrum, family structure and stability of Nielsen-Olesen vortices embedded in a larger gauge group when the vacuum manifold is related to a symmetric space.
We study the fate of U(1) strings embedded in a non-Abelian gauge theory with a hierarchical pattern of the symmetry breaking: G->U(1) at V->nothing at v, V>>v. While in the low-energy limit the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen string (flux tube) is perfectly stable, being considered in the full theory it is metastable. We consider the simplest example: the magnetic flux tubes in the SU(2) gauge theory with adjoint and fundamental scalars. First, the adjoint scalar develops a vacuum expectation value V breaking SU(2) down to U(1). Then, at a much lower scale, the fundamental scalar (quark) develops a …
It is argued that the phenomenon of a flux tube in quantum chromodynamics is closely connected with a spontaneously symmetry breakdown of gauge theory. It is shown that in the presence of a mass term in the SU(2) gauge theory the Nielsen-Olesen equations describe the flux tube surrounded by an external field.
The Nielsen - Olesen flux tube in the SU(2) Yang - Mills - Higgs theory dressed with the color electric $E^a_{ρ,ϕ}$ and magnetic $H^a_{ρ,ϕ}$ fields is derived. On the next step it is argued that this flux tube can be considered as a result of the nonperturbatuve analytical calculations in the SU(3) quantum theory.
We study the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen multi-vortices. Using a numerical code we are able to solve the vortex equations with winding number up to n=25,000. We can thus check the wall vortex conjecture previously made in hep-th/0507273 and hep-th/0507286. The numerical results show a remarkable agreement with the theoretical predictions.
Six-dimensional Nielsen-Olesen vortices are analyzed in the context of a quadratic gravity theory containing Euler-Gauss-Bonnet self-interactions. The relations among the string tensions can be tuned in such a way that the obtained solutions lead to warped compactification on the vortex. New regular solutions are possible in comparison with the case where the gravity action only consists of the Einstein-Hilbert term. The parameter space of the model is discussed
We analyze the problem of the Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes in the SU(2) lattice gauge theory by means of a recently introduced gauge-invariant effective action. We perform numerical simulations in the case of a constant Abelian chromomagnetic field. We find that for lattice sizes above a certain critical length the density of effective action shows a behaviour compatible with the presence of the unstable modes. We put out a possible relation between the dynamics of the unstable modes and the confinement.
We discuss quantum mechanical decay of color magnetic field generated initially at high energy heavy ion collisions. It is caused by Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes and is accomplished possibly in a period $<1$fm/c. We show that the decay products, i.e. incoherent gluons may be thermalized in a sufficiently short period ($< 1$fm/c). The precise determination of the period is made by calculating two point function of the color magnetic field in a model of color glass condensate.
It has been argued that the rapid decay of coherent color gauge fields generated immediately after high energy heavy ion collisions produces quark gluon plasma. But there are no convincing mechanisms for the rapid decay of the gauge fields which satisfy phenomenological constraints on their life time. We show by using classical statistical field theory that the production of magnetic monopoles cause the rapid decay of the gauge fields. The monopoles are unstable modes just like Nielsen-Olesen modes and are enormously produced by dual Schwinger mechanism.
It has been discussed that quark gluon plasma is produced following the rapid decay of coherent color gauge fields generated immediately after high energy heavy ion collisions. But there are no convincing mechanisms known for the rapid decay of the gauge fields which satisfy phenomenological constraints on their lifetime. We show by using classical statistical field theory that the gauge fields rapidly decay into magnetic monopoles. For comparison, we show how fast they decay into Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes. We find that the rapid decay of the glasma is caused by the monopole production.
We show that in the SU(2) Georgi-Glashow model, 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles are produced by a classical instability in magnetic fields above the Ambjorn-Olesen critical field, which coincides approximately with the field at which Schwinger pair production becomes unsuppressed. Below it, monopoles can be produced thermally, and we show that the rate is higher than for pointlike monopoles by calculating the sphaleron energy as a function of the magnetic field. The results can be applied to production of monopoles in heavy-ion collisions or in the early Universe.
We study the fermionic zero modes of BPS semilocal magnetic vortices in N=2 supersymmetric QED with a Fayet-Iliopoulos term and two matter hypermultiplets of opposite charge. There is a one-parameter family of vortices with arbitrarily wide magnetic cores. Contrary to the situation in pure Nielsen-Olesen vortices, new zero modes are found which get their masses from Yukawa couplings to scalar fields that do not wind and are non-zero at the core. We clarify the relation between fermion mass and zero modes. The new zero modes have opposite chiralities and therefore do not affect the net counting…
We investigate the Landau-level structures encoded in the famous Heisenberg-Euler (HE) effective action in constant electromagnetic fields. We first discuss the HE effective actions for scalar and spinor QED, and then extend it to the QCD analogue in the covariantly constant chromo-electromagnetic fields. We identify all the Landau levels and the Zeeman energies starting out from the proper-time representations at the one-loop order, and derive the vacuum persistence probability for the Schwinger mechanism in the summation form over independent contributions of the all-order Landau levels. We …
The collinear color electric and magnetic fields have been discussed to be produced immediately after high energy heavy ion collisions. We discuss anomalous gluon production under the background gauge fields. The gluons are Nielsen-Olesen unstable modes. The production rate of the modes by Schwinger mechanism has recently been found to be anomalously larger than the rate of quarks or other stable gluons. Analyzing classical evolutions of the modes with initial conditions given by vacuum fluctuations, we find that their production makes the color electric field decay very rapidly. The life time…
