Superconducting non-Abelian vortices in Weinberg --Salam theory -- electroweak thunderbolts

by Michael Volkov (Université de Tours)

Monday 8 Mar 2010, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

Salle 727, BSP (EPFL)

We present a detailed analysis of classical solutions in the bosonic sector of the electroweak theory which describe vortices carrying a constant electric current I. These vortices exist for any value of the Higgs boson mass and for any weak mixing angle, and in the zero current limit they reduce to Z strings. Their current is produced by the condensate of vector W bosons and typically it can attain billions of amperes. It seems that the current can be arbitrarily large, due to the scale invariance of the vector boson condensate. Finite vortex segments can be perturbatively stable. This suggests that they can transfer electric charge between different regions of space, similarly to thunderbolts. It is also possible that they can form loops stabilized by the centrifugal force --electroweak vortons.