Solitons in curved spacetime

Abstract Derrick's theorem is an important result that decides the existence of soliton configurations in field theories in different dimensions. It is proved using the extremization of finite energy of configurations under the scaling transformation. According to this theorem, the dimension is the critical dimension for the existence of solitons in scalar field theories without the gauge fields. In the present article, Derrick's theorem is extended in a generic curved spacetime in a covariant manner. Moreover, the existence of solitons in conformally flat spacetimes and spherically symmetric spacetimes is also shown using the approach presented in this article. Further, the approach shown in the present article in order to derive the soliton configurations is not restricted to a particular form of the field potential or curved spacetime.