Quantum fermion emission from excited kinks

Abstract

The amplitude of an excited shape mode in a kink is expected to decay with a well-known power law via scalar radiation emission due to the nonlinear self-coupling of the scalar field. In this work we propose an alternative decay mechanism via pair production of fermions in a simple extension of the $\phi^4$ model in which the scalar field is coupled to a (quantum) fermionic field through a Yukawa-like interaction term. We study the power emitted through fermions as a function of the coupling constant in the semi-classical limit (without backreaction) and compare it to the case of purely scalar radiation emission.