Quantum Effects on Higgs Winding Configurations

Abstract

We examine the quantum corrections to the static energy for Higgs winding configurations. We evaluate the effective action for such configurations in Weinberg-Salam theory without U(1)-gauge fields or fermions. For a configuration whose size is much smaller than the inverse W-mass, quantum contributions to the energy are comparable to the classical energy. Moreover, it is insufficient to consider only one-loop corrections, even as hbar --> 0. Indeed, all loop orders contribute equally to the static energy. Nevertheless, quantum fluctuations do not stabilize winding configurations.