Related papers: Defect formation from defect--anti-defect annihila…
Our understanding of the mechanism by which topological defects are formed in symmetry breaking phase transitions has recently changed. We examine the non-equilibrium dynamics of defect formation for weakly-coupled global O(N) theories…
A pair of a domain wall and an anti-domain wall is unstable to decay. We show that when a vortex-string is stretched between the walls, there remains a knot soliton (Hopfion) after the pair annihilation.
We theoretically study the vortex formation from the collision of the domain walls in phase-separated two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. The collision process mimics the tachyon condensation for the annihilation of D-brane and…
Domain walls, strings and monopoles are extended objects, or defects, of quantum origin with topologically non--trivial properties and macroscopic behavior. They are described in Quantum Field Theory in terms of inhomogeneous condensates.…
Monopoles and instantons are sheets (membranes) and strings in d=5+1, respectively, and instanton strings can terminate on monopole sheets. We consider a pair of monopole and anti-monopole sheets which is unstable to decay and results in a…
We consider quantum phase transitions with global symmetry breakings that result in the formation of topological defects. We evaluate the number densities of kinks, vortices, and monopoles that are produced in $d=1,2,3$ spatial dimensions…
In these lectures, I review cosmological phase transitions and the topological aspects of spontaneous symmetry breaking. I then discuss the formation of walls, strings and monopoles during phase transitions including lattice based studies…
It is well-known that localized topological defects (solitons) experience recoil when they suffer an impact by incident particles. Higher-dimensional topological defects develop distinctive wave patterns propagating along their worldvolume…
Vacuumless defects in space-times with torsion may be obtained from vacuum defects in spacetimes without torsion.This idea is applied to planar domain walls and global monopoles.In the case of domain walls exponentially decaying Higgs type…
The theories in which our world presents a domain wall (brane) embedded in large extra dimensions predict new types of topological defects. These defects arise due to the fact that the brane on which we live spontaneously breaks isometries…
Topological defects such as vortices, dislocations or domain walls define many important effects in superconductivity, superfluidity, magnetism, liquid crystals, and plasticity of solids. Here we address the breakdown of the…
We systematically analyze the decay of metastable topological defects that arise from the spontaneous breakdown of gauge or global symmetries. Quantum-mechanical tunneling rates are estimated for a variety of decay processes. The decay rate…
We show that the mechanism of vortex-antivortex pair production via field oscillations, earlier proposed by two of us for systems with first order transitions in presence of explicit symmetry breaking, is in fact very generally applicable.…
We review recent work on a new class of topological defects which possess a nonsymmetric core. They arise in scalar field theories with global symmetries, U(1) for domain walls and SU(2) for vortices, which are explicitly broken to $Z_2$…
We investigate the semi-classical instability of vacuum domain walls to processes where the domain walls decay by the formation of closed string loop boundaries on their worldvolumes. Intuitively, a wall which is initially spherical may…
Topological defects are ubiquitous in condensed-matter physics but only hypothetical in the early universe. In spite of this, even an indirect evidence for one of these cosmic objects would revolutionize our vision of the cosmos. We give…
We propose a class of field theories featuring solitonic solutions in which topological defects can end when they intersect other defects of equal or higher dimensionality. Such configurations may be termed ``Dirichlet topological…
We study the formation of domain walls in a phase transition in which an S_5\times Z_2 symmetry is spontaneously broken to S_3\times S_2. In one compact spatial dimension we observe the formation of a stable domain wall lattice. In two…
Liquid crystals inevitably possess topological defect excitations generated through boundary conditions, applied fields or in quenches to the ordered phase. In equilibrium pairs of defects coarsen and annihilate as the uniform ground state…
We investigate the mechanism by which topological defects form in first order phase transitions with a charged order parameter. We show how thick superconductor vortices and heavy cosmic strings form by trapping of magnetic flux. In an…