Pedagogical introduction to vortex, domain wall, and kink

Question

Recently, Majorana fermions became a hot topic in condensed matter physics. The concepts: vortex, domain wall, and kink often appear in these articles about Majorana fermions. I have no idea about the different characteristic of these concepts.

Please give a pedagogical introduction to these definitions and list the common and different characteristic of the vortex, domain wall, and kink in detail.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-10-23 07:17 (UTC), posted by SE-user ZuoZW

Answer 1

The first reference that comes to mind is Coleman's classic textbook, Aspects of Symmetry. Despite that, you can also find a self contained introduction in Tong's lectures notes  and another reference I like a lot is Shifman's Advanced topics in Quantum Field Theory.

I hope this helps. 

_{P.S. Can someone let me know how I can make a link like above but with a different title than the actuall website I am linking too? I cannot find such an option when I am trying to post a link like above. Update: Thanks to Dilaton I ve edited the links ;)}

Comments

Hi @conformal_gk you can just write the title of the link, then highlight it, and choose the buton with the infinity symbol to insert the URL you want to link to.

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Thanks a lot Dilaton. 

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The infinity symbol is in fact the abstraction of a link in a real chain!

Answer 2

Try Cosmic strings and other topological defects, and topological solitons... both excellent monographs on solitons. The former more geared to the "physics", the latter to "maths". Both excellent texts.

Answer 3

I think this is a good book too (discusses classical and quantum mechanical) .Maybe here  you find good information too. 

Comments

Can you please add a description to go with the links? That way,  one doesn't need to click a link to figure out the reference.