Kink-antikink collisions in hyper-massive models

Abstract

We study topological kinks and their interactions in a family of scalar field models with a double well potential parametrized by the mass of small perturbations around the vacua, ranging from the mass of the $\phi^4$ Klein-Gordon model all the way to the limit of infinite mass, which is identified with a non-analytic potential. In particular, we look at the problem of kink-antikink collisions and analyze the windows of capture and escape of the soliton pair as a function of collision velocity and model mass. We observe a disappearance of the capture cases for intermediary masses between the $\phi^4$ and non-analytic cases. The main features of the kink-antikink scattering are reproduced in a collective coordinates model, including the disappearance of the capture cases.