Atiyah-singer index theorem in an SO(3) Yang-Mills-Higgs system and derivation of a charge quantization condition

The Atiyah-Singer index theorem is generalized to a two-dimensional SO(3) Yang-Mills-Higgs (YMH) system. The generalized theorem is proven by using the heat kernel method and a nonlinear realization of SU(2) gauge symmetry. This theorem is applied to the problem of deriving a charge quantization condition in the four-dimensional SO(3) YMH system with non-Abelian monopoles. The resulting quantization condition, eg=n (n is an element of Z), for an electric charge e and a magnetic charge g is consistent with that found by Arafune, Freund and Goebel. It is shown that the integer n is half of the index of a Dirac operator. (author)