Magnetic monopoles with Wilson loops on a 5D orbifold Original Research Article

We discuss magnetic monopoles in gauge theories with Wilson loops on orbifolds. We present a simple example in 5 dimensions with the fifth dimension compactified on an S1/Z2 orbifold. The Wilson loop in this SO(3) example replaces the adjoint Higgs scalar (needed to break SO(3) to U(1)) in the well-known ʹt Hooft–Polyakov construction. Our solution is a magnetic monopole string with finite energy, and length equal to the size of the extra dimension.