Related papers: Towards a Solution of the Cosmological Domain Wall…
We study the evolution of cosmological domain walls in models with asymmetric potentials. Our research goes beyond the standard case of spontaneous breaking of an approximate symmetry. When the symmetry is explicitly broken the potential…
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…
Discrete symmetry-breaking phase transitions in the early universe may have caused the formation of networks of sheet-like topological defects, usually referred to as domain walls, which separate regions that have settled into different…
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…
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…
Domain wall networks in the early universe, formed upon spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry, have a rich impact on cosmology. Yet, they remain somewhat unexplored. We introduce a new analytic strategy to understand better the domain…
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 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…
We study the formation and evolution of domain walls with initial inflationary fluctuations by numerical lattice calculations that, for the first time, correctly take into account correlations on superhorizon scales. We find that, contrary…
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 demonstrate that the evolution of wall-like inhomogeneities in run-away potentials, characteristic of dynamical supersymmetry breaking and moduli stabilisation, is very similar to the evolution of domain wall networks associated with…
Cosmological domain walls appear in many well-motivated extensions to the standard model of particle physics. If produced, they quickly enter into a self-similar scaling regime, where they are capable of efficiently sourcing a stochastic…
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…
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'…
The breaking of an approximate discrete symmetry, the final stages of a first order phase transition, or a post-inflationary biased probability distribution for scalar fields are possible cosmological scenarios characterized by the presence…
Domain wall networks have attracted renewed interest, particularly in relation to the dynamics of network collapse. Accurately describing this process is challenging and typically requires large scale numerical simulations. Here we adopt a…
We calculate the vacuum fluctuations that may affect the evolution of cosmological domain walls. Considering domain walls, which are classically stable and have interaction with a scalar field, we show that explicit symmetry violation in…
We revisit the cosmological evolution of domain wall networks, taking advantage of recent improvements in computing power. We carry out high-resolution field theory simulations in two, three and four spatial dimensions to study the effects…
We study the evolution of domain wall networks and their phenomenological implications in a model of a real scalar $\chi$, where a $Z_2$-symmetry is slightly broken by a potential bias $V_{bias}$. It is demonstrated that the latter triggers…
In this paper, we study the compatibility of biased domain wall scenarios with current gravitational wave data. We show that the Cosmic Microwave Background bounds on the fractional density of gravitational waves at the time of decoupling…