No Arabic abstract
We point out that domain wall formation is a more common phenomenon in the Axiverse than previously thought. Level crossing could take place if there is a mixing between axions, and if some of the axions acquire a non-zero mass through non-perturbative effects as the corresponding gauge interactions become strong. The axion potential changes significantly during the level crossing, which affects the axion dynamics in various ways. We find that, if there is a mild hierarchy in the decay constants, the axion starts to run along the valley of the potential, passing through many crests and troughs, until it gets trapped in one of the minima; the {it axion roulette}. The axion dynamics exhibits a chaotic behavior during the oscillations, and which minimum the axion is finally stabilized is highly sensitive to the initial misalignment angle. Therefore, the axion roulette is considered to be accompanied by domain wall formation. The cosmological domain wall problem can be avoided by introducing a small bias between the vacua. We discuss cosmological implications of the domain wall annihilation for baryogenesis and future gravitational wave experiments.
In our previous work, we found new types of the cosmic string solutions in the Abelian-Higgs model with an enhanced $U(1)$ global symmetry. We dubbed those solutions as the compensated/uncompensated strings. The compensated string is similar to the conventional cosmic string in the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen (ANO) string, around which only the would-be Nambu-Goldstone (NG) boson winds. Around the uncompensated string, on the other hand, the physical NG boson also winds, where the physical NG boson is associated with the spontaneous breaking of the enhanced symmetry. Our previous simulation in the 2+1 dimensional spacetime confirmed that both the compensated/uncompensated strings are formed at the phase transition of the symmetry breaking. Non-trivial winding of the physical NG boson around the strings potentially causes the so-called axion domain-wall problem when the model is applied to the axion model. In this paper, we perform simulation in the 3+1 dimensional spacetime to discuss the fate of the uncompensated strings. We observe that the evolution of the string-network is highly complicated in the 3+1 dimensional simulation compared with that seen in the previous simulation. Despite such complications, we find that the number of the uncompensated strings which could cause can be highly suppressed at late times. Our observation suggests that the present setup can be applied to the axion model without suffering from the axion domain-wall problem.
The Two Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) with spontaneously broken $Z_2$ symmetry predicts a production of domain walls at the electroweak scale. We derive cosmological constraints on model parameters for both Type-I and Type-II 2HDMs from the requirement that domain walls do not dominate the Universe by the present day. For Type-I 2HDMs, we deduce the lower bound on the key parameter $tanbeta > 10^5$ for a wide range of Higgs-boson masses $sim$ 100 GeV or greater close to the Standard Model alignment limit. In addition, we perform numerical simulations of the 2HDM with an approximate as well as an exact $Z_2$ symmetry but biased initial conditions. In both cases, we find that domain wall networks are unstable and, hence, do not survive at late times. The domain walls experience an exponential suppression of scaling in these models which can help ameliorate the stringent constraints found in the case of an exact discrete symmetry. For a 2HDM with softly-broken $Z_2$ symmetry, we relate the size of this exponential suppression to the soft-breaking bilinear parameter $m_{12}$ allowing limits to be placed on this parameter of order $mu$eV, such that domain wall domination can be avoided. In particular, for Type-II 2HDMs, we obtain a corresponding lower limit on the CP-odd phase $theta$ generated by QCD instantons, $theta stackrel{>}{{}_sim} 10^{-11}/(sinbeta cosbeta)$, which is in some tension with the upper limit of $theta stackrel{<}{{}_sim} 10^{-11}$--$10^{-10}$, as derived from the non-observation of a non-zero neutron electric dipole moment. For a $Z_2$-symmetric 2HDM with biased initial conditions, we are able to relate the size of the exponential suppression to a biasing parameter $varepsilon$ so as to avoid domain wall domination.
Axion is a promising candidate of dark matter. After the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking, axion strings are formed and attached by domain walls when the temperature of the universe becomes comparable to the QCD scale. Such objects can cause cosmological disasters if they are long-lived. As a solution for it, the Lazarides-Shafi mechanism is often discussed through introduction of a new non-Abelian (gauge) symmetry. We study this mechanism in detail and show configuration of strings and walls. Even if Abelian axion strings with a domain wall number greater than one are formed in the early universe, each of them is split into multiple Alice axion strings due to a repulsive force between the Alice strings even without domain wall. When domain walls are formed as the universe cools down, a single Alice string can be attached by a single wall because a vacuum is connected by a non-Abelian rotation without changing energy. Even if an Abelian axion string attached by domain walls are created due to the Kibble Zurek mechanism at the chiral phase transition, such strings are also similarly split into multiple Alice strings attached by walls in the presence of the domain wall tension. Such walls do not form stable networks since they collapse by the tension of the walls, emitting axions.
We consider domain walls in the $Z_3$ symmetric NMSSM. The spontaneous $Z_3$ discrete symmetry breaking produces domain walls, and the stable domain walls are problematic. Thus, we assume the $Z_3$ symmetry is slightly but explicitly broken and the domain walls decay. Such a decay causes a large late-time entropy production. We study its cosmological implications on unwanted relics such as moduli, gravitino, LSP and axion.
Exact analytic solutions of static, stable, non-planar BPS domain wall junctions are obtained in extended Abelian-Higgs models in $(D+1)$-dimensional spacetime. For specific choice of mass parameters, the Lagrangian is invariant under the symmetric group ${cal S}_{D+1}$ of degree $D+1$ spontaneously broken down to ${cal S}_D$ in vacua, admitting ${cal S}_{D+1}/{cal S}_D$ domain wall junctions. In $D=2$, there are three vacua and three domain walls meeting at a junction point, in which the conventional topological charges $Y$ and $Z$ exist for the BPS domain wall junctions and the BPS domain walls, respectively as known before. In $D=3$, there are four vacua, six domain walls, four junction lines on which three domain walls meet, and one junction point on which all the six domain walls meet. We define a new topological charge $X$ for the junction point in addition to the conventional topological charges $Y$ and $Z$. In general dimensions, we find that the configuration expressed in the $D$-dimensional real space is dual to a regular $D$-simplex in the $D$-dimensional internal space and that a $d$-dimensional subsimplex of the regular $D$-simplex corresponds to a $(D-d)$-dimensional intersection. Topological charges are generalized to the level-$d$ wall charge $W_d$ for the $d$-dimensional subsimplexes.