Related papers: Non-Equilibrium Phase Transitions and Domain Walls
We give an analytical description of the spatial distribution of domain walls produced during a biased nonequilibrium phase transition in the vacuum state of a light scalar field. We discuss in detail the spectrum of the associated…
Domain walls in equilibrium phase transitions propagate in a preferred direction so as to minimize the free energy of the system. As a result, initial spatio-temporal patterns ultimately decay toward uniform states. The absence of a…
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…
Domain walls form at phase transitions which break discrete symmetries. In a cosmological context they often overclose the universe (contrary to observational evidence), although one may prevent this by introducing biases or forcing…
Nonequilibrium phenomena of the phase transitions are studied. It is shown that due to finite relaxation time of the particle distributions, the use of scalar background dependent distribution functions is inconsistent.This observation may…
We study the evolution of biased domain walls in the early universe. We explicitly discuss the roles played by the surface tension and volume pressure in the evolution of the walls, and quantify their effects by looking at the collapse of…
We review the current issues of nonequilibrium phase transitions, in particular, in the early universe. Phase transitions cannot maintain thermal equilibrium and become nonequilibrium when the thermal relaxation time scale is greater than…
In this work we show a class of oscillating configurations for the evolution of the domain walls in Euclidean space. The solutions are obtained analytically. Phase transitions are achieved from the associated fluctuation determinant, by the…
Scalar fields in the early Universe are mostly discussed in two limits: either in equilibrium or completely decoupled. In this work we discuss scenarios where there are scalar fields that are not in equilibrium, but for which the coupling…
In this brief review we introduce the methods of quantum field theory out of equilibrium and study the non-equilibrium aspects of phase transitions. Specifically we critically study the picture of the ``slow-roll'' phase transition in 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…
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…
A supersymmetric theory with several scalar superfields generically has several domain wall type classical configurations which interpolate between various supersymmetric vacua of the scalar fields. Depending on the couplings, some of these…
We discuss here phase transitions in quantum field theory in the context of vacuum realignment through an explicit construction. Vacuum destabilisation may occur through a scalar attaining a nonzero expectation value, or through a…
Nonequilibrium phase transitions are discussed with emphasis on general features such as the role of detailed balance violation in generating effective (long-range) interactions, the importance of dynamical anisotropies, the connection…
Scaling ideas and renormalization group approaches proved crucial for a deep understanding and classification of critical phenomena in thermal equilibrium. Over the past decades, these powerful conceptual and mathematical tools were…
We study the cosmological evolution of domain wall networks in two and three spatial dimensions in the radiation and matter eras using a large number of high-resolution field theory simulations with a large dynamical range. We investigate…
The theory of continuous phase transitions predicts the universal collective properties of a physical system near a critical point, which for instance manifest in characteristic power-law behaviours of physical observables. The…
We have studied the cosmological evolution of domain wall networks in two, three and four spatial dimensions using high-resolution field theory simulations. The dynamical range and number of our simulations is larger than in previous works,…
We investigate cosmological consequences of an extended gravity model which belongs to the same class studied by Accetta and Steinhardt in an extended inflationary scenario. But we do not worry about inflation in our model; instead, we…