Massless and Massive Monopoles Carrying Nonabelian Magnetic Charges

Abstract

The properties of BPS monopoles carrying nonabelian magnetic charges are investigated by following the behavior of the moduli space of solutions as the Higgs field is varied from a value giving a purely abelian symmetry breaking to one that leaves a nonabelian subgroup of the gauge symmetry unbroken. As the limit of nonabelian unbroken symmetry is reached, some of the fundamental abelian monopoles remain massive but acquire nonabelian magnetic charges. The BPS mass formula indicates that others should because massless in this limit. These do not correspond to distinct solitons, but instead are manifested as a ``nonabelian cloud'' surrounding the massive monopoles, with their position and phase degrees of freedom being transformed into parameters characterizing the cloud.