Self-gravitating non-abelian kinks as brane worlds

We address the properties of self-gravitating domain walls arising from the breaking of an SU(N) x Z_2- symmetric theory. In the particular case of N=5, we find that the two classes of stable non-abelian kinks possible in flat space have an analogue in the gravitational case, and construct the analytical solutions. Localization of fermion fields in different representations of the gauge group in these branes is investigated. It is also shown that non-abelian gauge fields localization cannot be achieved through interactions with the brane, but that in one of the two classes of kinks this localization can be implemented via the Dvali-Shifman mechanism.