Soliton decay in a coupled system of scalar fields

Abstract

A system of coupled scalar fields is introduced which possesses a spectrum of massive single-soliton solutions. Some of these solutions are unstable and decay into lower mass stable solitons. Some properties of the solutions are obtained using general principles including conservation of energy and topological charges. Rest energies are calculated via a variational scheme, and the dynamics of the coupled fields are obtained by solving the field equations numerically.