Andy Royston, Penn State University
The extended Bogomolny equations are a system of PDE's for a connection and a triplet of Higgs fields on a three-dimensional space. They are a hybrid of the Bogomolny equations and the Nahm equations. After reviewing how these latter systems arise in the study of magnetic monopoles, I will present an energy functional for which solutions of the extended Bogomolny equations are minimizers in a fixed topological class. In this construction, the connection and Higgs triplet are defined on all of R^3 and couple to additional dynamical fields localized on a two-plane that are analogous to jumping data in the Nahm equations. Solutions can therefore be interpreted as finite-energy BPS solitons in a three-dimensional theory with a planar defect. This talk is based on work done in collaboration with Sophia Domokos.
MC 5417