Isospin Invariance and the Vacuum Polarization Energy of Cosmic Strings

Abstract

We corroborate the previously applied spectral approach to compute the vacuum polarization energy of string configurations in models similar to the standard model of particle physics. The central observation underlying this corroboration is the existence of a particular global isospin transformation of the string configuration. Under this transformation the single particle energies of the quantum fluctuations are invariant, while the inevitable implementation of regularization and renormalization requires operations that are not invariant. We verify numerically that all such variances eventually cancel, and that the vacuum polarization energy obtained in the spectral approach is indeed gauge invariant.

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References in corpus (6)

• Monopoles on strings
• Stable charged cosmic strings
• Fermion Energies in the Background of a Cosmic String
• Quantum Energies of Strings in a 2+1 Dimensional Gauge Theory
• Quantum stabilization of Z-strings, a status report on D=3+1 dimensions
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Quantum Corrections to Soliton Energies
• Scattering and bound states of a spin--1/2 neutral particle in the cosmic string spacetime
• Quantum stabilization of a hedgehog type of cosmic string