Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2023 / iii / Paper 313 / 1 / b

The potential factorizes asIt is even and nonnegative, with three degenerate vacua at $\varphi =-2,0,2$. Its two intervening maxima occur at $\varphi =\pm 2/\sqrt{3}$ and have height $256/27$.

A finite-energy static solution in one dimension satisfiesMultiplication by ${\varphi }^{\prime }$ and use of the vacuum boundary conditions gives the first integralAny path from a negative vacuum to a positive vacuum must pass through the intermediate vacuum $\varphi =0$. There both $U$ and ${\varphi }^{\prime }$ vanish. The Picard-Lindelof theorem then forces a solution reaching $(\varphi ,{\varphi }^{\prime })=(0,0)$ at finite $x$ to remain there. Equivalently, the first-order orbit approaches $\varphi =0$ only as $|x|\to \infty$. This intermediate-vacuum obstruction to a kink means that a single kink cannot connect $-2$ to $2$; it splits into two elementary kinks at infinite separation.