Related papers: Domain Walls as Dark Energy
Full suite of the present day Cosmic Microwave background (CMB) data, when combined with weak prior information on the Hubble constant and the age of the Universe, or the Large-Scale structure, provides strong indication for a non-zero…
For a general dark-energy equation of state, we estimate the maximum possible radius of massive structures that are not destabilized by the acceleration of the cosmological expansion. A comparison with known stable structures constrains the…
The two most popular candidates for dark energy, i.e. a cosmological constant and quintessence, are very difficult to distinguish observationally, mostly because the quintessence field does not have sizable fluctuations. We study a scalar…
We investigate the possibility of replacing the cosmological constant with gradual condensation of a scalar field produced during the decay of a superheavy dark matter. The advantage of this class of models to the ordinary quintessence is…
We discuss cosmic domain walls described by a tension red-shifting with the expansion of the Universe. These melting domain walls emit gravitational waves with the low-frequency spectral shape $\Omega_{gw}\propto f^{2}$ corresponding to the…
Several experiments suggest that the charge carriers in the normal state of certain cuprate superconductors reside on domain walls. In an earlier paper, we suggested that several aspects of the anomalous dynamical behavior of these…
Quantum field theory allows for the suppression of vacuum fluctuations, leading to sub-vacuum phenomena. One of these is the appearance of local negative energy density. Selected aspects of negative energy will be reviewed, including the…
We study properties of domain walls in the symmetron model, in which the scalar gravitational degree of freedom decouples from matter in regions of high density, and exhibits a spontaneously broken $Z_2$ symmetry at low densities. The…
We present evidence that a special class of gravitationally-coupled hidden sectors, in which conformal invariance is dynamically broken in a controlled way, exhibit the properties of dark energy. Such quantum field theories may appear while…
We investigated domain wall networks as a possible candidate to explain the present accelerated expansion of the universe. We discuss various requirements that any stable lattice of frustrated walls must obey and propose a class of `ideal'…
We study the dynamical aspects of dark energy in the context of a non-minimally coupled scalar field with curvature and torsion. Whereas the scalar field acts as the source of the trace mode of torsion, a suitable constraint on the torsion…
We discuss a model of the universe where dark energy is replaced by electrically-charged extremely-massive dark matter. The cosmological constant has a value of the same order as the mean matter density, consistent with observations, and is…
A dual component made of non-relativistic particles and a scalar field, exchanging energy, naturally falls onto an attractor solution, making them a (sub)dominant part of the cosmic energy during the radiation dominated era, provided that…
At present we know nothing about the nature of the dark energy accounting for about 70% of the energy density of the Universe. One possibility is that the dark energy is provided by an extremely light field, the quintessence, rolling down…
Dark energy models due to a slowly evolving scalar (quintessence) field $\phi$ are studied for various potentials $V(\phi)$ in a universe with negative curvature. The potentials differ in whether they possess a minimum at $\phi=0$ or are…
Observations suggest that nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and exerts negative pressure. Theoretical understanding of this component (`dark energy'), which is driving an accelerated expansion of…
It is extraordinary that a number of observations indicate that we live in a spatially flat, low matter density Universe, which is currently undergoing a period of accelerating expansion. The effort to explain this current state has focused…
We study the evolution of domain wall networks appearing after phase transitions in the early Universe. They exhibit interesting dynamical scaling behaviour which is not yet well understood, and are also simple models for the more…
We present the idea that replacing the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ in the $\Lambda$CDM model by a distribution of walls, with very low tension compared to what one would expect from new physics, could help explaining the tension in the…
We study some possible astrophysical implications of a very weakly coupled ultralight dilaton-type scalar field. Such a field may develop an (approximately stable) network of domain walls. The domain wall thickness is assumed to be…