Relativistic Moduli Space and critical velocity in kink collisions

Abstract

We analyze the perturbative Relativistic Moduli Space approach, where the amplitudes of the Derrick modes are promoted to collective coordinates. In particular, we analyse the possibility to calculate the critical velocity, i.e., the initial velocity of kinks at which single bounce scattering changes into a multi-bounce or annihilation collision, in the resulting Collective Coordinate Model (CCM). We find that for a growing number of modes the critical velocity of the CCM approaches the full field theory value. This is verified in the case of the $\phi^4$ model, where we reach a $99\%$ accuracy. We also see such a convergence for a wide range of models belonging to the family of the double sine-Gordon and Christ-Lee theories, especially in those cases where the kinks do not reveal a too well pronounced half-kink inner structure.