One-loop surface tensions of (supersymmetric) kink domain walls from dimensional regularization

Abstract

We consider domain walls obtained by embedding the (1 + 1)-dimensional φ4-kink in higher dimensions. We show that a suitably adapted dimensional regularization method avoids the intricacies found in other regularization schemes in both supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric theories. This method allows us to calculate the one-loop quantum mass of kinks and surface tensions of kink domain walls in a very simple manner, yielding a compact d-dimensional formula which reproduces many of the previous results in the literature. Among the new results is the non-vanishing one-loop correction to the surface tension of a (2 + 1)-dimensional N = 1 supersymmetric kink domain wall with chiral domain-wall fermions.