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 Chem-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 solitions are infinitely degenerate in any given sector.