Interacting kinks and meson mixing

Abstract

A Rayleigh–Schrödinger type of perturbation scheme is employed to study weakly interacting kinks and domain walls formed from two different real scalar fields χ and φ. An interaction potential V1(χ,φ) is chosen which vanishes in a vacuum state of either field. Approximate first order corrections for the fields are found, which are associated with scalar field condensates inhabiting the zeroth order topological solitons. The model considered here presents several new and interesting features. These include (1) a condensate of each kink field inhabits the other kink, (2) the condensates contribute an associated mass to the system which vanishes when the kinks overlap, (3) a resulting mass defect of the system for small interkink distances allows the existence of a loosely bound state when the interkink force is repulsive. An identification of the interaction potential energy and forces allows a qualitative description of the classical motion of the system, with bound states, along with scattering states, possible when the interkink force is attractive. (4) Finally, the interaction potential introduces a mixing and oscillation of the perturbative χ and φ meson flavor states, which has effects upon meson–kink interactions.