Baby Skyrmions stabilized by vector mesons

Recent results suggest that multi-Skyrmions stabilized by omega mesons have very similar properties to those stabilized by the Skyrme term. In this paper we present the results of a detailed numerical investigation of a (2+1)-dimensional analogue of this situation. Namely, we compute solitons in an O(3) sigma-model coupled to a massive vector meson and compare the results to baby Skyrmions, which are solitons in an O(3) sigma-model including a Skyrme term. We find that multi-solitons in the vector meson model are surprisingly similar to those in the baby Skyrme model, and we explain this correspondence using a simple derivative expansion.