We investigate dark matter candidates emerging in recently proposed technicolor theories. We determine the relic density of the lightest, neutral, stable technibaryon having imposed weak thermal equilibrium conditions and overall electric neutrality of the Universe. In addition we consider sphaleron processes that violate baryon, lepton and technibaryon number. Our analysis is performed in the case of a first order electroweak phase transition as well as a second order one. We argue that, in both cases, the new technibaryon contributes to the dark matter in the Universe.Finally we examine the problem of the constraints on these types of dark matter components from earth based experiments. * Electronic address: gudnason@nbi.dk † Electronic address: kouvaris@nbi.dk ‡ Electronic address: sannino@nbi.dk

A fifth force, of technicolor type, responsible for breaking the electroweak theory is an intriguing extension of the Standard Model. Recently new theories have been shown to feature walking dynamics for a very low number of techniflavors and are not ruled out by electroweak precision measurements. We identify the light degrees of freedom and construct the associated low energy effective theories. These can be used to study signatures and relevant processes in current and future experiments. In our theory the technibaryons are pseudo Goldstone bosons and their masses arise via extended technicolor interactions. There are hypercharge assignments for the techniquarks which renders one of the technibaryons electrically neutral. We investigate the cosmological implications of this scenario and provide a component of dark matter. * Electronic address: gudnason@nbi.dk † Electronic address: kouvaris@nbi.dk ‡ Electronic address: sannino@nbi.dk

We construct the general vortex solution in the color-flavor-locked vacuum of a non-Abelian gauge theory, where the gauge group is taken to be the product of an arbitrary simple group and U(1). Use of the holomorphic invariants allows us to extend the moduli-matrix method and to determine the vortex moduli space in all cases. Our approach provides a new framework for studying solitons of non-Abelian varieties with various possible applications in physics. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Skyrmions can be transformed into lumps or baby-Skyrmions by being trapped inside a domain wall. Here we find that they can also be transformed into sine-Gordon kinks when confined by vortices, resulting in confined Skyrmions. We show this both by an effective field theory approach and by direct numerical calculations. The existence of these trapped and confined Skyrmions does not rely on higher-derivative terms when the host solitons are flat or straight. We also construct a Skyrmion as a twisted vortex ring in a model with a sixth-order derivative term.Comment: RevTeX: 27 pages, 8 figures; V2: reference adde

We study what might be called fractional vortices, vortex configurations with the minimum winding from the viewpoint of their topological stability, but which are characterized by various notable substructures in the transverse energy distribution. The fractional vortices occur in diverse Abelian or non-Abelian generalizations of the Higgs model. The global and local features characterizing these are studied, and we identify the two crucial ingredients for their occurrence-the vacuum degeneracy leading to nontrivial vacuum moduli M, and the BPS nature of the vortices. Fractional vortices are further classified into two kinds. The first type of such vortices appear when M has orbifold Z(n) singularities; the second type occurs in systems in which the vacuum moduli space M possesses either a deformed geometry or some singularity. These general features are illustrated with several concrete models

We study non-Abelian Chern-Simon BPS-saturated vortices enjoying N = 2 supersymmetry in d = 2 + 1 dimensions, with generic gauge groups of the form U (1) × G ′ , with G ′ being a simple group, allowing for orientational modes in the solutions. We will keep the group as general as possible and utilizing the powerful moduli matrix formalism to provide the moduli spaces of vortices and derive the corresponding master equations. Furthermore, we study numerically the vortices applying a radial Ansatz to solve the obtained master equations and we find especially a splitting of the magnetic fields, when the coupling constants for the trace-part and the traceless part of the Chern-Simons term are varied, such that the Abelian magnetic field density can become negative near the origin of the vortex while the non-Abelian part stays positive, and vice versa.

We show that the recently proposed minimal walking technicolor theory together with a small modification of the Standard Model fermionic matter content leads to an excellent degree of unification of the gauge couplings. We compare the degree of unification with various time-honored technicolor models and the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. We find that, at the one-loop level, the new theory provides a degree of unification higher than any of the other extensions above. The phenomenology of the present model is very rich with various potential dark matter candidates. * Electronic address: gudnason@nbi.dk † Electronic address: ryttov@nbi.dk ‡ Electronic address: sannino@nbi.dk

Non-Abelian BPS vortices in SO(N) × U(1) and USp(2N) × U(1) gauge theories are constructed in maximally color-flavor locked vacua. We study in detail their moduli and transformation properties under the exact symmetry of the system. Our results generalize non-trivially those found earlier in supersymmetric U(N) gauge theories. The structure of the moduli spaces turns out in fact to be considerably richer here than what was found in the U(N) theories. We find that vortices are generally of the semi-local type, with power-like tails of profile functions.