Is the doubly charged monopole stable

An SU(3)→SO(3)→U(1) model is used to examine the mass spectra of both the Z2 monopole formed at the first stage of symmetry breaking and the doubly charged monopole formed at the second. We find that the Z2 nature of the monopole does not affect its mass spectrum. We also find that the doubly charged monopole can have a mass M/sub monopole/<M/sub W//α in the Prasad-Sommerfield limit, where M/sub W/ is the mass of the gauge bosons formed at the second stage of symmetry breaking. It will be shown that, under certain conditions, the doubly charged monopole is not stable, but can decay to two singly charged monopoles