Domain wall annihilation -- a QFT perspective

Abstract

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 wall epoch, from formation to annihilation. Our method includes a quantum field theoretical treatment of the initial state at domain wall formation, as well as of the time evolution. We find that the domain wall area density for a network with biased initial condition in $d+1$ dimensional flat spacetime evolves as $t^{-1/2}\,\exp\big(- (t/t_{ann})^{d/2}\big)$. We comment on the relation between this and previous results obtained in condensed matter and in cosmology. The extrapolation of this law to an expanding universe applies to networks that are close to the domain wall `gas' limit.