Stability of the B=2 hedgehog in the Skyrme model

We study the unstable modes of the baryon number two hedgehog of the Skyrme model on a three dimensional spatial lattice. An expansion of the Skyrme Lagrangian around the hedgehog configuration provides the equations of motion for the fluctuation fields solvable numerically via a relaxation method. We find the negative energy modes and, by evolving the excited hedgehog in time, a breakup into two separated solitonic configurations is obtained. Different paths of descent for the receding Skyrmions are presented and the possibility of determining the metric structure of the collective-coordinate manifold is discussed.