PHYSICAL REVIEW D VOLUME 14, NUMBER 8 15 OCTOBER 1976

Time-dependent generalizations of 't Hooft-type monopoles*

Kenneth A. Friedman and Michio Kaku
Department of Physics, The City College of The City University of New York, New York, New York 10031
(Received 15 April 1976)
We construct new classical monopole and dyon solutions of the 't Hooft type, which have particlelike
properties and are time-dependent. These new solutions are constructed out of the tensors arising out of the
classical electrodynamics of pointlike charged particles, and hence describe pointlike particles which can perform
arbitrary space-time motions. When the monopoles come to rest, they reduce to the monopoles found by
't Hooft and by Julia and Zee.

I. INTRODUCTION pendent solutions to the Y ang-Mills equations

Problems concerning strong-coupling theory and
bound-state phenomena a r e difficult t o handle
within the framework of conventional perturbation
theory. Classical solutions to the nonlinear field
equations, on the other hand, yield qualitative be-
havior concerning bound-state resonances, and
hence provide a useful framework for studying
hadronic resonances.
Recently, t h e r e has been intense interest in
classical solutions to nonlinear field equations.
It is known that, in two dimensions, soliton solu-
tions exist which exhibit particlelike behavior,
which c a r r i e s over to the quantum theory in the
form of an infinite s e t of quantized resonances.
Likewise, it i s known that Wu-Yang' solutions
(which mix isospin and ordinary spin) solve the
Yang-Mills equations classically. Recently,
't ~ o o f t 'has generalized these Wu-Yang solutions
to the case of Higgs s c a l a r s and has demonstrated
the existence of monopole solutions to the field
equations.
However, there is a fundamental problem to the
quantization program of classical solutions to
nonlinear field equations. Since our quantum solu-
tions to nonlinear field equations a r e constructed
directly f r o m classical solution^,^ our quantum
descriptions of the bound states are, in some
sense, only a s physical a s a r e the original clas-
sical solutions. In particular, most of the known
classical solutions a r e static ones, and a r e hence
not suitable f o r calculating the Regge trajectories
of the spectrum. The nonstatic solutions found s o f a r
a r e trivial and do not give u s qualitatively better
insight into the dynamics of quantum solutions.
Exact, time-dependent solutions to gauge
theories a r e difficult t o find. In such solutions,
we d e s i r e periodic time-dependent motions which
allow f o r t h e quantization of the modes: a pulsa-
ting, "breathing" mass o r particle distribution,
o r a spinning distribution of elongated matter.
In this paper, we will exhibit exact, time-de-
which exhibit particlelike properties. In particu-
l a r , we will show, that, whe?z these particles
come to r e s t , they reduce exactly to the monopole
solutions of 't Hooft and of Julia and ~ e e These
. ~
time-dependent solutions, which resemble very
much the classical solutions to ordinary electro-
dynamics of accelerating point charges, a r e
characterized by an arbitrary parameter which
represents the velocity of the particle. (These
solutions a r e found by joining the noncompact
Lorentz group with the compact color group; the
physical implications of the joining of these groups
will be discussed later.) In a previous paper,5 we
introduced a formalism which would handle Max-
well-type particles which can perform arbitrary
motions, including accelerations. In this paper,
we will restrict ourselves to the case of uniform
translations.
11. THE PROBLEM OF TIME DEPENDENCE
In order t o discuss the mathematical and physi-
cal motivations f o r our Ansatz, it i s useful to r e -
view the previous work in static, classical solu-
tions to gauge theories.
Originally, Wu and Yang introduced classical
solutions to Yang-Mills equations which s u r p r i s -
ingly mix spin and isospin modes. F o r the group
SU(2), they found that the Yang- Mills equation
can be solved if one constructs the Ansatz
Later, 't Hooft was able to construct, using this
Ansatz, the Higgs generalization to this solution
which exhibits monopole properties.
The Wu-Yang Ansatz i s easily generalized to
SU(3),6 where the solution is given by
2024 KENNETH A. FRIEDMAN AND MICHIO KAKU
where f ( r ) and g(r) a r e functions of the radial
distance r , which satisfy known differential equa-
tions.
It now becomes clear, from these two examples,
how the general rules may be formulated to con-
s t r u c t new solutions. The trick is to take the
tensor s e t
and then construct all possible tensor combina-
tions of this basic set. These new solutions a r e
invariant under a group whose generators a r e
simply the sum of the generators of the gauge
group and the rotation group. An Ansatz, con-
structed out of arbitrary s e t of these invariants,
i s then inserted back into the equation of motion,
and we a r e then able to isolate the differential
equations which govern the spatial behavior of the
coefficients of each term. In this way, we may
generalize the above solutions.
The generalization of this program to the case
of time-dependent motions is nontrivial. F i r s t of
all, one may experiment with using the four-
vector x, a s part of our fundamental set. This has
difficulties because our Ansatz must then be a
function of the Lorentz invariant x,x,. Unfortun-
ately, x,x, does not have properties that easily
lend themselves to a particlelike description.
The other problem with using x, is that, if we
wish to join the vector onto the generators of the
Lie group, the group must then be noncompact in
order to contract properly with the noncompact
Lorentz group.
Recently, the Ansatz7
was introduced in order t o include compact groups
in our construction. The drawback to this ap-
proach is that we must use the Euclidean metric.
Because we use the invariant x x, this solution
does not exhibit well-defined particlelike proper-
ties.
Another approach i s to multiply the original
Ansatz by some function of the t i m e and solve for
the equations governing the t i m e development of
this function.' In such a way, one may hope to
construct pulsating, "breathing" periodic motions
of the matter distribution. Unfortunately, in
practice this is difficult t o perform without a
computer, and even then the resulting quantized
object does not generate the leading trajectory
(because the orbital angular momentum of this
pulsating object i s low).
-
14
Yet another approach, which we will adopt in
this paper, was outlined in a previous work. The
key to this new construction i s to build our Ansatz
not out of the Lorentz vector x,, which does not
have nice particlelike properties, but to s t a r t
with mathematical functions which have particle-
like properties from the very s t a r t . In particular,
we a r e led to consider the solutions t o ordinary
classical electrodynamics of accelerating point
charges, which already have nice, physical
particlelike behavior.
The physical motivation for constacting the
ansatz in parallel with electrodynamics is (a) that
particlelike properties a r e immediate from the
s t a r t , and (b) that eventually we can construct
two such monopoles circling around each other,
connected by a string, much like the situation in
classical electrodynamics. The added advantage
of building our solutions out of known solutions
to electrodynamics i s that, when the particle i s
allowed to come to rest, we simply a r r i v e at
Coulomb forces, which resemble the original
functions used in our original tensor set. Thus,
using the L %nard-Wiechert potentials9 discussed
in ordinary electrodynamics, we may construct
solutions of the Yang-Mills equations which de-
scribe pointlike particles making arbitrary space-
time motions, which reduce to known monopole
solutions when the particle comes t o rest.
Mathematically this construction begins with the
observation that the tensor x i / r 2 can actually be
treated a s the derivative of l/r, which in turn i s
a solution of the equations of electrodynamics of
pointlike particles. Let B,, f o r example, r e p r e -
sent the vector potential produced by a pointlike
charged particle. At r e s t , this vector potential
simply reduces to a solution of Laplace's equa-
-
tion: B , l / ~ (i.e., Coulomb potential). Further-
more, we know that
instead of treating the basic tensor s e t mentioned
earlier, we can now use the tensors generated by
B, and all its space-time derivatives:
We will use the fact that, when the particle i s
s e t into motion by external fields, the vector po-
,
tential B satisfies the equations
where P,,(t) is the velocity parameter describing
the particle's motion. The solutions to these a r e
the usual ones constructed out of retarded func-
14
- TIME-DEPENDENT GENERALIZATIONS O F 't HOOFT-TYPE
tions:
~~(~)=1$$$6(t' -R(tf)- i)dtl
=(".)KR st '
R ( t ) = /%(t)-sl,
K=naPI,
(As an aside, we notice that it i s possible, through
a gauge rotation,'' to reduce our complicated non-
linear equations to the linear equations of Max-
well. Our LiBnard-Wiechert potentials, in effect,
a r e solutions to the Maxwell equations of accelera-
s o that a,B,(x)=O, and
aaeBBy( x ) = ((& {[2p2+p(1 +Pi nt) +Rbl xanaPy - 3P(n,P, +naP,)PY + 2 8 9
s o that
111. THE ANSATZ
Before introducing theAnsatz we list the pro-
perties that we d e s i r e for our solution:
(a) We want our moving monopole solution to r e -
duce, in the static limit when the particle comes
to rest, to the known monopole solutions of
't Hooft and of Julia and Zee. In this way, we
have a continuous, smooth procedure for obtaining
the known monopole solutions f o r SU(2).
(b) We wish our solutions to have positive-definite
energy. Even though the energy of our solutions i s
formally infinite (because they a r e constructed out
of Lienart- Wiechert potentials, which have infinite
energy), we expect that spontaneous symmetry
breaking and the introduction of a m a s s scale will
give u s finite-energy solutions. Because our
solutions reduce, in the static limit, to the known
monopole solutions, our solutions have positive-
... 2025
ting pointlike charges, and hence a r e directly r e -
lated to the linearized equations. This is another
motivation f o r introducing LiBnard-Wiechert po-
tentials as the natural objects in our description
of time-dependent particle motions.)
In sum, we introduce Libnard-Wiechert poten-
tials because they already incorporate particle-
(2. 9, like behavior (i.e., the electrodynamics of ac-
celerating point charges), and that, when the
particle comes t o r e s t , we rederive the static
monopole.
Before going on, it is useful t o catalog the
derivatives of the vector potential B,,. When we
differentiate the vector B;, we find ihat we must
carefully differentiate the 6 junctions occurring
in the retarded integral. We can eliminate these
by carefully (and tediously) integrating by parts.
F o r completeness, we list a few derivatives:
+~P%~BPY
energy Hamiltonians, at least in the r e s t frame.
The problem with these two c r i t e r i a lies in the
fact that the tensors generated by B, and its
derivatives transform under the Lorentz group
0(3,1). These tensors, in turn, must be contract-
ed onto the generators of the color group. Thus,
we a r e forced at this level to have (a) either a
noncompact L i e group for the gauge group, which
will give u s positive-definite energies with a bad
spectrum, o r (b) compact groups f o r the gauge
groups, which require a Wick rotation in o r d e r to
join the compact and noncompact groups properly,
which will not give us positive-definite energies.
A partial solution to the problem i s to notice that,
in the r e s t frame of the particle, the static mono-
pole solutions a r e rederived, meaning that we
have no problems with ghosts and negative o r
complex energies (at least a t rest).
In a previous paper, we demonstrated that f o r
theAnsatz for the group SU(4) with a Wick rota-
tion, o r SU(3, 1) with no Wick rotation, we can
write down an exact solution for the Yang-Mills
equation which describes a pointlike particle ex-
ecuting a r b i t r a r y space-time motions:
2026 KENNETH A. FRIEDMAN AND MICHIO KAKU
In effect, our solution i s characterized by the
arbitrary p a r a m e t e r P,, which parametrizes the
a r b i t r a r y motions that the particle can execute.
Eventually, we hope to put two such solutions into
orbit around each other, in o r d e r to get periodic
solutions of the field equations suitable f o r quanti-
zation.
In this paper, we wish to generalize the previous
solution by testing out other possible Ansh'tze for
the Yang-Mills case, with the restriction that the
solution reduce t o the monopole solutions of
't Hooft and of Julia and Zee when the particle
comes t o a halt.
Because of the complexity of the problem, we
will r e s t r i c t the problem to the case when the
particle executes only uniform translations (i.e.,
P,=O). This will not be a s e v e r e restriction, be-
cause the formalism i s s o constructed to handle
arbitrary accelerating motions, but the calcula-
tions simplify in this limit. (Similarly, one can
simply Eorentz-boost the ordinary 't Hooft and
Julia-Zee solutions, which will give results
s i m i l a r to the ones given here, but our formalism
allows one to eventually tackle the problem of
accelerating particles, when two particles spin
around each other.)
In the restricted s e t of motions where the parti-
cle is uniformly translated in an a r b i t r a r y di-
rection, the complete s e t of basic tensors simpli-
fies:
{n,, p,, ,~ p u , s l .
We list useful derivatives which only work in the
case of uniform translations:
a,(~R),t = Jplza - Pa), - (Nahet ,
aa(NBXet=(Ma,/KR)ret ,
Ma8tp2nang+ P ~ , B
-Pn,Pb - PnbPa
ret =-(EZR) 4L&
ret ' tain t e r m s in Eqs. (3.4), (3.5), and (3.7). Details
aU(MsY = [ (1% sNy+Mu, ~ b ) / ~ R I r e t
-
14
The problem, therefore, now reduces to the
(3.1) question of listing a l l possible t e r m s which t r a n s -
f o r m in the proper way (i.e., transform under the
group whose generators a r e the sum of the gen-
e r a t o r s of the Lorentz group and the isospin
group).
At this point, the task reduces to the problem
of constructing a l l possible Anstttze out of the
possible s e t of tensors {p,, A",,: c,,,~, n,). This
i s not such a formidable task, if one bears in
mind certain constraints. First, we know that at
large distances the solution appears m o r e o r l e s s
static, so that we can set A " - l / r , where r r e p r e -
sents the average distance from the source to a
point very distant from the source. Asymptoti-
cally, we know that (in the static limit of large
distances)
Therefore, it is not hard to know the various
combinations of tensors which will produce the
right asymptotic limit. Second, and m o r e im-
portant, each tensor combination should trans-
form according t o the group I.@L, where I repre-
sents the gauge group and L represents the
Lorentz group. Specifically, t h i s means that the
isospin index a in A;, should be mapped onto the
isospin index in the corresponding vector poten-
tialA", Also, it means that the matrix indices
(kw)of A;, should be treated a s if they were
"Lorentz" indices which can be mapped onto the
genuine Lorentz indices of P,, n,, epvad. There-
fore, we a r e f r e e to contract Lorentz tensors
(3.2)
directly onto the matrix indices of the isospin
matrices. Lastly, we must observe that the vec-
t o r potential i s t r a c e l s s s . Given these constraints,
it is not hard (but it i s tedious) t o exhaust a l l pos-
sible forms f o r the vector potential. F o r com-
pleteness, we will list all such possible terms.
, (3.3) here exists an identity which links several of
these invariant tensors. Therefore, we omit c e r -
will. be published in a l a t e r paper, where we will
also discuss the SU(3) case.] These t e r m s a r e
14
- TIME-DEPENDENT GENERALIZATIONS OF 't HOOFT-TYPE ... 2027

Notice that each t e r m in the previous equation is divergenceless and traceless. When the previous s e t of
t e r m s is inserted into the wave equation, the result should be zero. Therefore, each tensor t e r m in t h e
wave equation must be separately zero. F o r completeness, we list all possible t e r m s which can occur in
the wave-equation output (there i s no restriction placed on the divergence of the result). These t e r m s a r e

Before listing the solutions which can be found at will), various tensor combinations were tried.
by exhausting all possible invariants, several Several combinations solve the equations exactly,
points should be made. F i r s t of all, the sym- for all values of n , and P,, but only the 't Hooft arid
metric and antisymmetric matrices A;, (with Julia-Zee monopoles have been analyzed in depth.
Wick rotation) span the isospin 'group SU(4). In a l a t e r paper, we will give generalizations to
Furthermore, if we let the velocity of the particle the Marciano-Pagels solution and also new mono-
to go to zero, then we find that antisymmetric poles that we have discovered.
matrices span the group SU(2), while the anti- If we take only the f i r s t t e r m labeled by c,, then
symmetric and symmetric matrices span the we a r r i v e at the equations arrived at e a r l i e r in a
group SU(3). [certain restrictions must be placed previous paper (except that now we simplify the
on the c ' s in o r d e r to cancel out all zero compo- case to unifortn translations):
nents of the Yang-Mills field. Otherwise, we will
a r r i v e a t groups such a s ~ ~ ( 2~ )( lx) . ]By prop-
erly choosing our coefficients, we s e e that our
Ansatz already contains the static Ansatz f o r the
The obvious choice of c , = 1 solves the equations.
't Hooft and Julia-Zee monopoles, a s well a s the
F r o m the computer program, we can solve f o r
Marciano-Pagels monopole. [without the Wick
any combination of t e r m s that we wish. One com-
rotation, the overall group i s SU(3, I).] When the
bination that proved successful was the s e t (c,, c,,
particle comes t o r e s t , and certain restrictions
and c,). The tensor decomposition of the wave-
a r e placed on the coefficients to eliminate the
equation output i s given by
zeroth component, then the antisymmetric ma-
t r i c e s span SU(2) and the sum of the matrices
span SU(3). When the particle i s s e t into motion,
then the antisymmetric matrices span the group
O(3, 1 ) while the sum of the symmetric and anti-
symmetric generators span the overall group
SU(3, 1).
In other words, the 'tHooft and Julia-Zee mono-
poles transfornz under the group O(3) u~henat r e s t
and the group 0 ( 3 , 1 ) when i t i s boosted. The
Marciano-Pagels monopole transforms under
SU(3) at r e s t and SU(3,l) when boosted. [With a
Wick rotation, the groups become O(4) and SU(4),
respectively.] Notice that these solutions a r e dif-
ferent from the result one obtains by simply Lor-
entz-boosting, in the usual way, the 't Hooft and
Julia-Zee monopoles.
The Ansatz that we have chosen, with all these
t e r m s , cannot easily be solved by hand, s o a Remarkably enough, we find that the particle
computer was used to do all the tensor and matrix solution i s given by the choice c, = 1, c , = arbitrary,
contractions required in the wave equation. The and c, = arbitrary. The solution that we want, of
computer program was written such that no ap- course, must reduce to previously known static
proximations a r e used. F o r specific values of n,, monopoles. In o r d e r to rederive the 't Hooft mono-
and P,, (which, of course, the computer can vary pole, we take the choice c, = 1 and c, = - 1/P2. The
2028 KENNETH A. FRIEDMAN AND MICBIO KAKU
complete solution is given by
When this particle comes to rest, it becomes the
original Wu-Yang AnsaCz
Next, we try to find the generalizations of Julia
and Zee. Taking the choice c, = 1, c, = -1, and
c,= arbitrary, we find the following solution:
Allowing the particle to come to rest, we s e e that
we yecover the original. Julia-Zee Ansatz.
IV. MONOPOLES AND DYONS
At this point, it is useful to review 't ~ o o f t ' s
original construction of monopoles out of gauge
theories. We take the usual Higgs Lagrangian with
gauge fields
r a
S = -4GILVGtI,
-$D,val3,va - i p2 cpa2
-Qx(vai4,
D,va = a w ~ " + 6 f a b $ L ~ " .
With the choice for the vector field and the scalar
field
A4 = ciaj ~ j / v 2,
pa = xa/9,, ((pay= 1
we find a solution to the equations of motion.
't Hooft then constructed the tensor
F,,,=cp"~t,+f,,ccp",cpb~,cpC, (4.4)
which i s gauge i ~ v a r i a n and
t also has the remark-
able property of satisfying Maxwell's equation.
This tensor F,, is therefore to be identified with
the F,, occurring in electrodynamics. Upon in-
serting (4.3) into (4.4), 't Hooft found that F,, is
given by
which i s simply a magnetic monopole with charge
2.
Our task is to construct solutions to the Higgs
equation with time-dependent motions. As part
of our Ansatz, we postulate that the scalar field
is given by
va= 2-1'2(<,i)01s~$&%dl~B/~)ret,((pa)'= 1.
We choose this Ansatz motivated by the fact that,
in the static case, this reproduces the original
-
14
Ansatz of 't Hooft.
Our f i r s t task is to demonstrate that cpa given
by Eq. (4.6) does indeed minimize the Lagrange
density. For the case of time-dependent 't Hooft
solutions, it is not hard to show that
When we put the above equation into our Lagran-
gian, we find that
(D,cp')'= 0 . (4.8)
Likewise, for the time-dependent Julia-Zee mono -
pole, we find that the above equation remains the
same. We know, therefore, that our choice for the
scalar field is a solution to the equations of mo-
tion. All that remains now is to insert our 't Hooft
and Julia-Zee Ansatz into our Maxwell tensor using
the proper choice for the scalar field, After a
fair amount of algebra, we find that
(4.1) for the 't Hooft case and that
(4.2) E
F PI, =- "OLE aaBB+ c(alCBLt
mapw)
-6
for the Julia-Zee case. Notice that in the second
case we have a genuine dyon with both electric and
(4a3) magnetic charges.
In summary, we have found that both the 't Hooft
and Julia-Zee monopoles can be generalized to
include time variations if we enlarge the group.
We find that the electromagnetic tensor, in the
first case, describes a monopole of electric
charge 2, and in the second case, we find a dyon
of arbitrary electric charge.
V. DISCUSSION
The techniques mentioned a r e quite general and
can be applied in many ways. The heart of the
method is to notice the close connection between
Yang-Mills solutions and electrodynamics. Static
solutions of Yang-Mills resemble closely the
static (Coulomb) solutions of electrodynamics.
We exploit this connection by using particlelike
LiBnard-Wiechert potentials (describing accelera-
ting charged pointlike particles) to construct the
Ansatz for the Yang-Mills case. Immediately,
we a r e guaranteed particlelike properties. The
(4.6) disadvantage of this approach is that we must
join compact and noncompact groups, meaning that
there will be problems with the positive definite-
-
14 TIME-DEPENDENT GENERALIZATIONS O F ' t HOOFT-TYPE
ness of the energy (ghosts, continuous mass,
etc.) A Wick rotation eliminates some of these
problems, but does not necessarily make the ener-
gy positive-definite. However, we remark that all
our solutions reduce, in the static limit, to the
usual monopoles found earlier by 't Hooft and by
Julia and Zee s o that, in the r e s t frame, all these
problems disappear.
The Ansatz mentioned here certainly does not
exhause the many other possibilities for construct-
ing Ansiitze for the Yang-Mills problem. The use
of LiBnard-Wiechert potentials to solve the Yang-
Mills problem may certainly be more general
than the Ansatz chosen in this paper.
The entire question of combining two such mono-
poles o r dyons, to construct a spinning monopole
pair connected by a string, is still left open. P r e -
vious authors who investigated the problem have
solved the case when there a r e two static mono-
poles with su(2).1° The generalizations of this,
especially to the case where the monopoles a r e
spinning around each other, a r e left open. In
*Work supported in part by the National Science Founda-
tion under Grant No. LTPS75-07376 and in part by the
Research Foundation of the City University of New
York under Grant No. 11136.
IT. T. Wu and C. N. Yang, in Properties of Matter
Under Unusual Conditions, edited by H . Mark and
B. Fernback (Interscience, New York, 1960), pp. 349-
354.
'G. 't Hooft, Nucl. Phys. E,276 (1974).
3 ~ Rajaraman,
. Phys. Rep.x, 227 (1975).
4 ~ Julia
. and A. Zee, Phys. Rev. D 11, 2227 (1975).
5 ~ Kaku,
. Phys. Rev. D 13,2881 (1976).
... 2029
the case of uniformly translating particles, there
probably i s no problem in finding two-monopole
solutions. The case with arbitrary accelerations
is not clear.
In summary, the advantages of this approach a r e
that (a) we preserve particlelike properties in our
Ansatz by using known classical solutions to the
electrodynamics of moving charged pointlike p a r -
ticles, (b) in the rest frame, the Ansiitze reduce
to those found earlier for the static case, where
there a r e no problems with the energy o r ghosts,
(c) the computer program also gives u s many
more solutions, which generalize the Marciano -
Pagels monopole, and (d) we construct a general
program with which entirely new Ansiitze may be
constructed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We a r e happy to acknowledge fruitful conversa-
tions and discussions with Professor B. Sakita.
6 ~ C.
. T. Wu and T. T. Wu, J. Math. Phys. 2, 53
(1974); W. J. Marciano and H. Pagels, Phys. Rev.
D 12, 1093 (1975).
7 ~ . Belavin, A. M. Polyakov, A. S. Schwartz, and
Yu. S. Tyupkin, Phys. Lett. E,85 (1975).
*For example, s e e N. P. Chang, CCNY report (unpub-
lished).
$J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics (Wiley, New
York, 1963), p. 465.
"J. Arafune, P. G. 0. Freund, and C. J. Goebel, J.
Math. Phys. 3, 433 (1975).