TEXTURE BESTIARY - FROM SYMMETRY-BREAKING PATTERNS TO TOPOLOGICAL FIELD CONFIGURATIONS

Textures are topologically nontrivial field configurations which can e xist in a field theory in which a global symmetry group G is broken to a subgroup H, if the third homotopy group pi3 of G/H is nontrivial. W e compute this group for a variety of choices of G and H, revealing wh at symmetry-breaking patterns can lead to texture. We also comment on the construction of texture configurations in the different models.