Stable skyrmions from extra dimensions

Abstract

We show that skyrmions arising from compact five dimensional models have stable sizes. We numerically obtain the skyrmion configurations and calculate their size and energy. Although their size strongly depends on the magnitude of localized kinetic-terms, their energy is quite model-independent ranging between 50 - 65 times F-pi(2)/m(rho), where F-pi is the Goldstone decay constant and m(rho) the lowest Kaluza-Klein mass. These skyrmion configurations interpolate between small 4D YM instantons and 4D skyrmions made of Goldstones and a massive vector boson. Contrary to the original 4D skyrmion and previous 5D extensions, these configurations have sizes larger than the inverse of the cutoff scale and therefore they are trustable within our effective 5D approach. Such solitonic particles can have interesting phenomenological consequences as they carry a conserved topological charge analogous to baryon number.