Defect formation from defect--anti-defect annihilations

Abstract

We show that when a topological defect with extended world-volume annihilates with an anti-defect, there arise topological defects with dimensions less than those of the original defects by one. Domain wall annihilations create vortices while monopole-string annihilations result in instantons. We find that twisted domain wall rings are vortices, whereas twisted monopole rings are instantons.

Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures, typos corrected, published version. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1205.2443