arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R. Singleton.
The properties of periodic instanton solutions of the classical SU(2) gauge theory with a Higgs doublet field are described analytically at low energies, and found numerically for all energies up to and beyond the sphaleron energy. Interesting new classes of bifurcating complex periodic instanton solutions to the Yang-Mills-Higgs equations are described.
We investigate fermion production in the background of Minkowski space solutions to the equations of motion of $SU(2)$ gauge theory spontaneously broken via the Higgs mechanism. First, we attempt to evaluate the topological charge $Q$ of the solutions. We find that for solutions $Q$ is not well-defined as an integral over all space-time. Solutions can profitably be characterized by the (integer-valued) change in Higgs winding number $ΔN_H$. We show that solutions which dissipate at early and late times and which have nonzero $ΔN_H$ must have at least the sphaleron energy. We show that if we couple a quantized massive chiral fermion to a classical background given by a solution, the number of fermions produced is $ΔN_H$, and is not related to $Q$.