Cosmological solutions in a spontaneously broken gauge theory

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Feb 24;96(7):071101. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.071101. Epub 2006 Feb 21.

Abstract

We consider solutions of the Yang-Mills-Higgs system coupled to gravity in asymptotically de Sitter space-time. The basic features of two classes of solutions are discussed, one of them corresponding to magnetic monopoles, the other one to sphalerons. We find that although the total mass within the cosmological horizon of these configurations is finite, their mass evaluated at timelike infinity generically diverges for most values of the cosmological constant. Also, no solutions exist in the absence of a Higgs potential.