SOLITONS OF A GENERAL GAUGED S-2 MODEL WITH A MASS TERM

We study soliton solutions of the U(1) gauged S-2 sigma model with a g eneralised potential term. We show that the model has localised static solutions in the Q = 1 topological sector. We prove some properties o f the model and in particular: (i) we establish a topological bound fo r these solutions and (ii) we show that the model has finite energy so lutions only in a finite region of the parameter space of the potentia l. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.