Monopoles,braid groups,and the dirac operator

Using the relation between the space of rational functions on , the space ofSU(2)-monopoles on ³, and the classifying space of the braid group, see 10], we show how the index bundle of the family of real Dirac operators coupled toSU(2)-monopoles can be described using permutation representations of Artin's braid groups. We also show how this implies the existence of a pair consisting of a gauge fieldA and a Higgs field on ³ whose corresponding Dirac equation has an arbitrarily large dimensional space of solutions.The first author was supported by a grant from the NSF