  Just as fermion zero modes can alter the degeneracy and quantum numbers of a
soliton, fermion energies can affect the form and stability of a nontopological
soliton. We discuss the kink in a two-dimensional linear sigma model, and show
that, when coupled to fermions, the kink is no longer an extremum of the energy
functional. The kink in this model possesses many similarities to the
electroweak string in the Weinberg-Salam model.
