On the domain of moduli fields

The concept of the moduli space allows for a simple, universally applicable description of the low-energy dynamics of topological solitons. This description is remarkably insensitive to the properties of the underlying theory, whose details only manifest themselves via the moduli space metric. This article presents a generalization of this concept, which allows to transfer its most intriguing features to configurations of any energy captured by the theory giving rise to the soliton, given that these are localized sufficiently close to the soliton’s center. The resulting theory is capable of describing all dynamics within its range of applicability by just one family of fields, with all the information about the underlying theory entering via a finite number of background functions, which can be linked to physical properties of the present soliton.