Related papers: Decaying Domain Walls in an Extended Gravity Model…
Topologically protected sheet-like surfaces, called domain walls, form when the potential of a field has a discrete symmetry that is spontaneously broken. Since this condition is commonplace in field theory, it is plausible that many of…
Thermal inflation is an attractive solution to the cosmological moduli problem. However, domain walls may be formed after thermal inflation and some mechanisms are needed to eliminate the domain wall before it dominates the Universe. We…
After inflation occurs, a weakly coupled scalar field will in general not be in thermal equilibrium but have a distribution of values determined by the inflationary Hubble parameter. If such a field subsequently undergoes discrete symmetry…
The axion causes two serious cosmological problems, domain wall and isocurvature perturbation problems. Linde pointed that the isocurvature perturbations are suppressed when the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) scalar field takes a large value $\sim…
We investigate two cosmological axion problems (isocurvature fluctuations and domain-wall formation) in chaotic inflationary universe. It is believed that these problems are solved if potential for the Peccei-Quinn scalar field is very…
Theories in which the Peccei-Quinn phase transition occurs after inflation tend to suffer from problematic domain walls. One possible solution involves a small, explicit breaking ot the symmetry. But this raises other potential issues. We…
Non-equilibrium phase transitions of a scalar field in an expanding spacetime are discussed. These transitions are shown to lead, for appropriate potential energy functions, to a biased choice of vacuum structure which can be analytically…
It is difficult to construct a post-inflation QCD axion model that solves the axion quality problem (and hence the Strong CP problem) without introducing a cosmological disaster. In a post-inflation axion model, the axion field value is…
Cosmlogical domain walls produced during phase transition are expected to collapse on a cosmologically safe timescale if Vilenkin's condition is satisfied. We show that the decaying processes of these unstable domain walls should be changed…
We revisit the domain wall problem for QCD axion models with more than one quark charged under the Peccei-Quinn symmetry. Symmetry breaking during or after inflation results in the formation of a domain wall network which would cause cosmic…
We show that all kinds of biasing of cosmological phase transitions produce qualitatively new type of domain wall networks. The biased networks consist of compact, finite size, bag-like wall structures and exhibit a generic instability. The…
Discrete symmetries are commonplace in field theoretical models but pose a severe problem for cosmology since they lead to the formation of domain walls during spontaneous symmetry breaking in the early universe. However if one of the…
This paper studies the decay of a large, closed domain wall in a closed universe. Such walls can form in the presence of a broken, discrete symmetry. We introduce a novel process of quantum decay for such a wall, in which the vacuum…
We study the role of domain walls and their relics in the very early Universe within the framework of the mode-matching technique. Domain walls formed during the spontaneous breaking of discrete symmetries are modelled as a short lived…
We explore the interplay of the post-inflationary QCD axion and a light scalar field for the axion domain wall decay and dark matter (DM). The scalar field possesses a nonzero vacuum expectation value (VEV) during inflation, so that its…
The domain wall problem of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism can be solved if the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is explicitly broken by a small amount. Domain walls decay into axions, which may account for dark matter of the universe. This scheme is…
A new class of gravity-matter models defined in terms of two independent non-Riemannian volume forms (alternative generally covariant integration measure densities) on the space-time manifold are studied in some detail. These models involve…
We consider a model with two real scalar fields which admits phantom domain wall solutions. We investigate the structure and evolution of these phantom domain walls in an expanding homogeneous and isotropic universe. In particular, we show…
We consider the evolution of domain walls produced during an anisotropic phase in the very early universe, showing that the resulting network can be very anisotropic. If the domain walls are produced during an inflationary era, the network…
We show that heavy axion domain walls induce domain walls of the QCD axion through a mixing between the heavy axion and the QCD axion, even when the pre-inflationary initial condition is assumed for the QCD axion. The induced domain walls…