Neutrino zeromodes on electroweak strings in light of topological insulators

Abstract

Abstract We examine neutrino zeromode solutions on the electroweak Z-string and their effect on the stability of the string in the standard model and its extensions. We propose using topological invariants constructed from the momentum (and real) space topology of Green’s functions, often used for investigating edge modes in condensed matter physics. We analyze the standard model and then examine type-I and type-II extensions of the neutrino sector as well as their hybrid. Based on this analysis, we also comment on proposals in the literature to stabilize the Z-string.