Journal article

Vector-field domain walls

JL Chkareuli, A Kobakhidze, RR Volkas

Physical Review D Particles Fields Gravitation and Cosmology | Published : 2009

Abstract

We argue that spontaneous Lorentz violation may generally lead to metastable domain walls related to the simultaneous violation of some accompanying discrete symmetries. Remarkably, such domain-wall solutions exist for spacelike Lorentz violation and do not exist for the timelike violation. Because a preferred space direction is spontaneously induced, these domain walls have no planar symmetry and produce a peculiar static gravitational field at small distances, while their long-distance gravity appears the same as for regular scalar-field walls. Some possible applications of vector-field domain walls are briefly discussed. © 2009 The American Physical Society.

University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

One of us (J. L. C.) appreciates the warm hospitality shown to him during his visit to the Theoretical Particle Physics Group at the University of Melbourne where part of this work was carried out. The Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Melbourne is also gratefully acknowledged. The work of A. K. and R. R. V. was supported in part by the Australian Research Council. We thank Alexander Vilenkin for interesting comments.