Creating kinks with quantum mediation

Abstract

We consider the creation of kink-antikink pairs of a scalar field $\varphi$ by the scattering of classical wavepackets of a second scalar field, $\psi$, when there are no direct interactions between $\varphi$ and $\psi$. The creation becomes possible only due to a quantum field that interacts with both $\varphi$ and $\psi$. We scan parameter space and find it favorable for kink production when the initial wavepackets have large total energy and wide spatial extent but scatter at low velocities.

Comments: 10 pages, 8 figures with subfigures. v2: expanded introduction, added references, further discussed the quantum nature of the system