Topological and Nontopological Solitons in a Gauged O(3) Sigma Model with Chern-Simons term

The $O(3)$ nonlinear sigma model with its $U(1)$ subgroup gauged, where the gauge field dynamics is solely governed by a Chern-Simons term, admits both topological as well as nontopological self-dual soliton solutions for a specific choice of the potential. It turns out that the topological solitons are infinitely degenerate in any given sector.