Monopole-like Configuration from Quantized SU(3) Gauge Fields

Abstract

Monopole field configurations have been extensively studied in both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories. The question of the quantum corrections to these systems is a difficult one, since the classical monopoles have non-perturbatively large couplings, which makes the standard, perturbative methods for calculating quantum corrections suspect. Here we apply a modified version of Heisenberg's quantization technique for strongly interacting, nonlinear fields to a classical solution of the SU(3) Yang-Mills field equations. This classical solution is not monopole-like and has an energy density which diverges as $r \to \infty$. However, the quantized version of this solution has a monopole-like far field, and a non-divergent energy density as $r \to \infty$. This may point to the conclusion that monopoles may arise not from quantizing classical monopole configurations, but from quantizing field configurations which at the classical level do not appear monopole-like.