We compare numerical solutions to the full field equations to simplified approaches based on implementing three collective coordinates for kink-antikink interactions within the ${\phi }^4$ and ${\varphi }^6$ models in one time and one space dimensions. We particularly pursue the question whether the collective coordinate approximation substantiates the conjecture that vibrational modes are important for resonance structures to occur in kink-antikink scattering.

We compute the vacuum polarization energies (VPEs) of solitons in a self-dual impurity model in which the soliton profiles take the shape of a separated kink-antikink pair. Classically the soliton energies are invariant under the change of a continuous parameter that can be interpreted as the kink-antikink separation. This is not the case for the VPEs so that quantum effects decide on the energetically most favorable separation. The considered configurations are classically stable so that its quantum fluctuations have only real frequency eigenvalues. Hence, in contrast to the kink-antikink configuration in the ${\varphi }^4$ model, the VPE is well defined for any value of the separation and we gain insight into the quantum corrections to the kink-antikink potential.

We compute the vacuum polarization energy of kink solitons in the ${\varphi }^8$ model in one space and one time dimensions. There are three possible field potentials that have eight powers of $\varphi$ and that possess kink solitons. For these different field potentials we investigate whether the vacuum polarization destabilizes the solitons. This may particularly be the case for those potentials that have degenerate ground states with different curvatures in field space yielding different thresholds for the quantum fluctuations about the solitons at negative and positive spatial infinity. We find that destabilization occurs in some cases, but this is not purely a matter of the field potential but also depends on the realized soliton solution for that potential. One of the possible field potentials has solitons with different topological charges. In that case the classical mass approximately scales like the topological charge. Even though destabilization precludes robust statements, there are indications that the vacuum polarization energy does not scale as the topological charge.