  A new model for monopole catalysis of nucleon decay is proposed. Unlike in
the earlier one, the only light fields in this model are the photon and Skyrme
(pion) field. The model admits the 't Hooft- Polyakov monopole and Skyrmion as
classical solutions, while baryon number non-conservation occurs through an
anomaly involving an intermediate mass axial vector field resembling W- and
Z-bosons. By considering spherically symmetric monopole-Skyrmion
configurations, we find that the Skyrmion looses essentially all its mass when
interacting with the monopole, which is phenomenologically identical to the
monopole catalysis of nucleon decay. Short-distance monopole-Skyrmion physics
in this model is interesting too, as there exist almost degenerate metastable
monopole-Skyrmion bound states separated by substantial energy barriers. Yet
the heights of the latter are much smaller than the physical nucleon mass, so
the complete disappearance of the normal undeformed Skyrmion remains perfectly
possible in Skyrmion-monopole scattering.
