Fundamental monopoles in theories with arbitrary symmetry breaking

Magnetic monopole solutions for an arbitrary compact simple gauge group are considered in the Prasad-Sommerfield limit. For each choice of gauge group and symmetry breaking there is a set of fundamental monopoles with minimal topological charges. The number of zero-frequency small oscillation modes about an arbitrary solution is related to the topological charges; the results suggest that all solutions with higher topological charges should be interpreted as multimonopole solutions composed of a number of non-interacting fundamental monopoles. (orig.)