We study the asymptotic behavior of spherically symmetric solutions in the Skyrme model. We show that the relaxation to the degree-one soliton (called the Skyrmion) has a universal form of a superposition of two effects: exponentially damped oscillations (the quasinormal ringing) and a power-law decay (the tail). The quasinormal ringing, which dominates the dynamics for intermediate times, is a linear resonance effect. In contrast, the polynomial tail, which becomes uncovered at late times, is shown to be a nonlinear phenomenon.

• Received 11 January 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.75.121702