  We study soliton solutions of the Nicole model - a non-linear
four-dimensional field theory consisting of the CP^1 Lagrangian density to the
non-integer power 3/2 - using an ansatz within toroidal coordinates, which is
indicated by the conformal symmetry of the static equations of motion. We
calculate the soliton energies numerically and find that they grow linearly
with the topological charge (Hopf index). Further we prove this behaviour to
hold exactly for the ansatz. On the other hand, for the full three-dimensional
system without symmetry reduction we prove a sub-linear upper bound,
analogously to the case of the Faddeev-Niemi model. It follows that symmetric
solitons cannot be true minimizers of the energy for sufficiently large Hopf
index, again in analogy to the Faddeev-Niemi model.
