English

Non-topological solitons as nucleation sites for cosmological phase transitions

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-10-31 v3

Abstract

I consider quantum field theories that admit charged non-topological solitons of the Q-ball type, and use the fact that in a first-order cosmological phase transition, below the critical temperature, there is a value of the soliton charge above which the soliton becomes unstable and expands, converting space to the true vacuum, much like a critical bubble in the case of ordinary tunneling. Using a simple model for the production rate of Q-balls through charge accretion during a random walk out of equilibrium, I calculate the probability for the formation of critical charge solitons and estimate the amount of supercooling needed for the phase transition to be completed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0009225,
  title  = {Non-topological solitons as nucleation sites for cosmological phase transitions},
  author = {D. Metaxas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0009225},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

20 pages, 2 figures, some comments and references added