Charged Vacuum Bubble Stability

Abstract

A type of scenario is considered where electrically charged vacuum bubbles, formed from degenerate or nearly degenerate vacuua separated by a thin domain wall, are cosmologically produced due to the breaking of a discrete symmetry, with the bubble charge arising from fermions residing within the domain wall. Stability issues associated with wall tension, fermion gas, and Coulombic effects for such configurations are examined. The stability of a bubble depends upon parameters such as the symmetry breaking scale and the fermion coupling. A dominance of either the Fermi gas or the Coulomb contribution may be realized under certain conditions, depending upon parameter values.