Paper detail

Supercurrent coupling in the Faddeev-Skyrme model

Motivated by the sigma model limit of multicomponent Ginzburg-Landau theory, a version of the Faddeev-Skyrme model is considered in which the scalar field is coupled dynamically to a one-form field called the supercurrent. This coupled model is investigated in the general setting where physical space is an oriented Riemannian manifold and the target space is a Kaehler manifold. It is shown that supercurrent coupling destroys the topological stability enjoyed by the usual Faddeev-Skyrme model, so that there can be no globally stable knot solitons in this model. Nonetheless, local energy minimizers may still exist. The first variation formula is derived and used to construct three families of static solutions of the model, all on compact domains. In particular, a coupled version of the unit-charge hopfion on a three-sphere of arbitrary radius is found. The second variation formula is derived, and used to analyze the stability of some of these solutions. A family of stable solutions is identified, though these may exist only in spaces of even dimension. Finally, it is shown that, in contrast to the uncoupled model, the coupled unit hopfion on the three-sphere of radius R is unstable for all R. This gives an explicit, exact example of supercurrent coupling destabilizing a stable solution of the uncoupled Faddeev-Skyrme model, and casts doubt on the conjecture of Babaev, Faddeev and Niemi that knot solitons should exist in the low-energy regime of two-component superconductors.