Q-balls across dimensions

Abstract

Scalars carrying a conserved global charge $Q$ can form stable localized field configurations composed of a large number of particles. These non-topological solitons are spherically symmetric and are called Q-balls. While usually analyzed in three spatial dimensions, these solitons can be straightforwardly generalized to $d$ spatial dimensions. For $d=1$, we can analytically solve the non-linear differential equation for an important class of single-field potentials; for $d>1$, we can analytically approximate the solutions in the thin-wall or large Q-ball regime, including the first sub-leading correction consistently. Since the underlying differential equations have the same form as vacuum-decay bounce solutions, our results find applications there, too.

10 pages, matches PRD version