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arXiv · hep-th/9808129

To be or knot to be?

Richard A. Battye·Paul M. Sutcliffe
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Abstract

It has been suggested recently that knots might exist as stable soliton solutions in a simple three-dimensional classical field theory, opening up a wide range of possible applications in physics and beyond. We have re-examined and extended this work in some detail using a combination of analytic approximations and sophisticated numerical algorithms. For charges between one and eight, we find solutions which exhibit a rich and spectacular variety of phenomena, including stable toroidal solitons with twists, linked loops and also knots. The physical process which allows for this variety is the reconnection of string-like segments.

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Richard A. Battye, Paul M. Sutcliffe. 1998-08-20. To be or knot to be?. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.81.4798

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