Quantum solitons at strong coupling

Abstract

We examine the effect of one loop quantum corrections on the formation of nontopological solitons in a strongly coupled scalar-fermionic Yukawa theory. The exact one fermion loop contribution is incorporated by using a nonlocal method to correct the local derivative expansion approximation (DE) of the effective action. As the Yukawa coupling is increased we find that the nonlocal corrections play an increasingly important role. The corrections cause the scalar field to increase in depth while maintaining its size. This increases the energy of the bag configuration, but this is compensated for by more tightly bound fermionic states with lower energy. In contrast to the semi-classical picture without quantum corrections, the binding energy is small, and the total energy scales directly with the Yukawa coupling. This confirms the qualitative behavior found in earlier work using the second order DE, although the quantitative solutions differ.