Four Decades of Kink Interactions in Nonlinear Klein-Gordon Models: A Crucial Typo, Recent Developments and the Challenges Ahead

Abstract

The study of kink interactions in nonlinear Klein-Gordon models in $1+1$-dimensions has a time-honored history. Until a few years ago, it was arguably considered a fairly mature field whose main phenomenology was well understood both qualitatively and at least semi-quantitatively. This consensus was shattered when H. Weigel and his group established that the effective model that had allowed this detailed understanding contained an all-important typo. Remarkably, they found that correcting this error wipes out both the quantitative and qualitative agreement and, in fact, leads to additional problems. We summarize the history of the subject from the early studies, up to Weigel's work and reflect on where these recent developments leave our understanding (which, quantitatively, is close to square one!). Importantly, we stress a number of emerging additional directions that have arisen in higher-order power law models and speculate on the associated significant potential for future work.